Next Year's School Calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It was for Eid. But they can't say that because we are a secular school system. So now we are getting off for religious non-federal holidays that approx 5% of the school's population celebrate. If we started Aug 28th this year, we would have been off Sept 1st for Eid as well.

Yes, we are, by state law, and we have been for decades. What percentage of MCPS students observes (Western) Good Friday? Not to mention, who celebrates (Western) Easter Monday? That isn't even a religious holiday.

Well it is a state law, nothing the BOE can do about that. I sure as heck don't want those two days. I hate having Spring Break wrapped around Easter.

The BOE should have never allowed Eid to be a school holiday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It was for Eid. But they can't say that because we are a secular school system. So now we are getting off for religious non-federal holidays that approx 5% of the school's population celebrate. If we started Aug 28th this year, we would have been off Sept 1st for Eid as well.

Yes, we are, by state law, and we have been for decades. What percentage of MCPS students observes (Western) Good Friday? Not to mention, who celebrates (Western) Easter Monday? That isn't even a religious holiday.

Well it is a state law, nothing the BOE can do about that. I sure as heck don't want those two days. I hate having Spring Break wrapped around Easter.

The BOE should have never allowed Eid to be a school holiday.

You can do something about it, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that teachers need professional days. It will be interesting this year to see how many teachers turn around grades quickly or if there are grading mistakes since all the professional days were lumped at the beginning of this school year.

By the way teachers only get paid for 215 days of work. I suspect many work second jobs to cover the rest of the year.

At our school the total budget for professional salaries is $3,937,235. Averaged over the 46.1 professionals, that is $85,406.39 per year per professional. That's not half bad for 9 1/2 months work, summers off, most big holidays off, winter break, spring break. Not to mention benefits and addotional leave time on top of that.

That number probably includes what HR people call the "roll up." So you can't really average that to get salaries. (For instance, if you make 50,000, your roll-up is probably between $60,000 and $100,000, depending on how cheap your employer is.) The MCPS salaries are all available online, so it's not hard to find out what they actually make. So, for instance, my daughter's teacher, who I think has a BA and about 4 years of experience, probably makes about $52,801. My other child's teacher, who I think has a master's and about 10 years of experience, probably makes about $74,276. It's not bad for 9 months of work, but not what I'd call easy money in this area. Paralegals at the big law firms make more than that and have a much easier gig (with no need for a master's degree).