CALENDAR: O days and new material

[Anonymous]

My kid, a senior, is taking her first two AP classes... and both exams are scheduled for May 3rd....which apparently is an O day.

So, DD tells me that at least one is being moved to the AP make up day. Probably both. But that means there is no make up for a kid who is sick on the only day FCPS is offering the AP tests that should be offered on May 3.

This O day stuff should not be interfering with national exams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid, a senior, is taking her first two AP classes... and both exams are scheduled for May 3rd....which apparently is an O day.

So, DD tells me that at least one is being moved to the AP make up day. Probably both. But that means there is no make up for a kid who is sick on the only day FCPS is offering the AP tests that should be offered on May 3.

This O day stuff should not be interfering with national exams.

Oh FFS. Environmental Science and Psychology. That’s a lot of kids.


This year, the AP only has one testing window. They are case by casing kids who miss it and making them take an alternate test at an inflexible alternate date, as they have in the past. Nobody wants to draw out APs. Will the college board even let them? And more to the point, maybe at some point just the kids who need religious accommodations should be inconvenienced.

Parents, please, please email the SB. This is not what the regulation said when it was approved. Look at January and April. Then add snow days and April being the AP testing lead up. Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid, a senior, is taking her first two AP classes... and both exams are scheduled for May 3rd....which apparently is an O day.

So, DD tells me that at least one is being moved to the AP make up day. Probably both. But that means there is no make up for a kid who is sick on the only day FCPS is offering the AP tests that should be offered on May 3.

This O day stuff should not be interfering with national exams.

My kid doesn’t have an AP test scheduled that day. If they did, I would try to move them to an alternate test site not under FCPS control. There is a way to do that.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:ES parent here. Our teachers most definitely did not follow the rules. My child had a new math lesson with new content today. Plus new homework supporting that content.

Good. After a year of learning loss, creating 15 more days on learning loss and justifying it in a public school based on religion is ridiculous. The sooner someone challenges this 100% illegal setup, the better.

It’s actually only 11 days, but ok.

And for kids on a block schedule in MS/HS, it’s 22 days. Which is not okay.

No it’s not. Math is not your strong suit. First of all, there are only a total only of 11 O days for the 21-22 school year. Not sure how you extrapolate to 22. A teacher on here explained it a while ago too. It’s 5 days on A days, and 6 days on B days. This is for the whole year. So it balances out.

They can be catch up days. Give the kids a break.

Do you have little kids?

Middle and high school are on the block schedule.

They only have 4 classes per day.

The MS and HS schedules alternate between A days and B days.

A and B days cover the same material every 2 days.

So if AB chemistry has a zero day on the Monday A day, then AP chemistry that meets on B days cannot move forward on the material.

11 days becomes 22 days of no learning for HS and MS.

Yes, I was right. You really aren’t getting it. Teachers are not going to hold the other class back on B day just because A day was an O day. They will be off by a few lessons. Big deal.

Most teachers ARE syncing their blocks, so it IS like missing 22 days.

Because of things such as test security and organization, it is too difficult to have blocks too far off from one another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ES parent here. Our teachers most definitely did not follow the rules. My child had a new math lesson with new content today. Plus new homework supporting that content.

Good. After a year of learning loss, creating 15 more days on learning loss and justifying it in a public school based on religion is ridiculous. The sooner someone challenges this 100% illegal setup, the better.

It’s actually only 11 days, but ok.

And for kids on a block schedule in MS/HS, it’s 22 days. Which is not okay.

No it’s not. Math is not your strong suit. First of all, there are only a total only of 11 O days for the 21-22 school year. Not sure how you extrapolate to 22. A teacher on here explained it a while ago too. It’s 5 days on A days, and 6 days on B days. This is for the whole year. So it balances out.

They can be catch up days. Give the kids a break.

Do you have little kids?

Middle and high school are on the block schedule.

They only have 4 classes per day.

The MS and HS schedules alternate between A days and B days.

A and B days cover the same material every 2 days.

So if AB chemistry has a zero day on the Monday A day, then AP chemistry that meets on B days cannot move forward on the material.

11 days becomes 22 days of no learning for HS and MS.

Yes, I was right. You really aren’t getting it. Teachers are not going to hold the other class back on B day just because A day was an O day. They will be off by a few lessons. Big deal.

Most teachers ARE syncing their blocks, so it IS like missing 22 days.

Because of things such as test security and organization, it is too difficult to have blocks too far off from one another.

I'm a high school teacher on a block schedule. I am 100% against these stupid religious observance days interfering with school. I would give just about anything to scrap them. They make my life complicated, limit kids' instructional opportunities, and are a pain for everyone.

That said, if a teacher is using "it's too hard" as an excuse to get keep their blocks in synch, they are just being lazy. I have 2 versions of tests--even day and odd day versions. Everyone in my entire department is doing this. As far as I know, most of my school is (though I admittedly don't talk to many outside of my department or immediate vicinity). It's not that difficult. Annoying? Sure. But it's just a matter of staying slightly more organized. (And I have 3 preps, 2 of which are on both even/odd days, so I have 5 different stacks of papers on my desk on any given day. I know it's frustrating, but it's reality for this year if we want to have half a shot at finishing most of the curriculum).

[Anonymous]

Thank you to my kids middle schools teacher who went on with the second half of the test today as scheduled. DS said there wasn’t anyone absent. And to the science teacher who went on with new material and had them finish it for homework. It wasn’t a wasted day. And I’m not naming the school so they don’t get told to stop.

[Anonymous]

Our class had a quiz on O day. Guess our teacher didn’t get the memo? This was an elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our class had a quiz on O day. Guess our teacher didn’t get the memo? This was an elementary school.

They got the memo, this comes up in our planning meetings. A few teachers will do it anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ES parent here. Our teachers most definitely did not follow the rules. My child had a new math lesson with new content today. Plus new homework supporting that content.

Good. After a year of learning loss, creating 15 more days on learning loss and justifying it in a public school based on religion is ridiculous. The sooner someone challenges this 100% illegal setup, the better.

It’s actually only 11 days, but ok.

And for kids on a block schedule in MS/HS, it’s 22 days. Which is not okay.

No it’s not. Math is not your strong suit. First of all, there are only a total only of 11 O days for the 21-22 school year. Not sure how you extrapolate to 22. A teacher on here explained it a while ago too. It’s 5 days on A days, and 6 days on B days. This is for the whole year. So it balances out.

They can be catch up days. Give the kids a break.

Do you have little kids?

Middle and high school are on the block schedule.

They only have 4 classes per day.

The MS and HS schedules alternate between A days and B days.

A and B days cover the same material every 2 days.

So if AB chemistry has a zero day on the Monday A day, then AP chemistry that meets on B days cannot move forward on the material.

11 days becomes 22 days of no learning for HS and MS.

Yes, I was right. You really aren’t getting it. Teachers are not going to hold the other class back on B day just because A day was an O day. They will be off by a few lessons. Big deal.

Most teachers ARE syncing their blocks, so it IS like missing 22 days.

Because of things such as test security and organization, it is too difficult to have blocks too far off from one another.

I'm a high school teacher on a block schedule. I am 100% against these stupid religious observance days interfering with school. I would give just about anything to scrap them. They make my life complicated, limit kids' instructional opportunities, and are a pain for everyone.

That said, if a teacher is using "it's too hard" as an excuse to get keep their blocks in synch, they are just being lazy. I have 2 versions of tests--even day and odd day versions. Everyone in my entire department is doing this. As far as I know, most of my school is (though I admittedly don't talk to many outside of my department or immediate vicinity). It's not that difficult. Annoying? Sure. But it's just a matter of staying slightly more organized. (And I have 3 preps, 2 of which are on both even/odd days, so I have 5 different stacks of papers on my desk on any given day. I know it's frustrating, but it's reality for this year if we want to have half a shot at finishing most of the curriculum).

I have yet to win a battle on the grounds that “this course of action is to the benefit of the children and crucial to our mission to teach them,” so I have given in. I am letting my HS students use O days to do catch up work. I have found the two days we had this year gave me some time to help students one-on-one and grade piles of late work, so they ended up not being terrible.