Year around schools VA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably the working parents who want year round school. They want the childcare.

True year round school has just as much time off, but distributed differently. Kids will still have to go to camps, but not 3 months in a row.

People should stop using the term “year round”. It’s not accurate and is confusing. When FCPS had schools on this type of schedule it was called a modified calendar.

Do we even know that this is what the Governor was referencing?

They can't afford year round. Staff salaries make up 85-90% of the annual school budget. They only way they can find another $50-100 million is to raise taxes and I doubt that will happen based on the current economic climate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably the working parents who want year round school. They want the childcare.

Year round school has the same number of days in school, the breaks are arranged differently. So the same number of days off. It has nothing to do with child care.

You would end up with 2 weeks off at the end of each quarter, probably 3 weeks at the Winter Break and maybe Spring Break. Summer would be 6 weeks instead of 9-10 weeks.

Essentially, you clearly do not understand the concept of year round school.

NP here, this is a much easier schedule for working parents. I have a lot of PTO and can take multiple 2-week breaks, but I can't take 6 weeks at a time. I can ask grandma to watch the kids for 1 week at a time, not for multiple weeks. I can spread out my camp payments instead of spending a fortune all at once in February to cover 10 weeks of summer childcare, and if my kid didn't get into a particular camp we could switch up our plans so she attended during a different break. So even though it is still the same amount of time off, it is still better for childcare reasons.

I would love it. It would prevent summer slide, make off-season travel easier, and give us longer breaks in the winter when it's miserable to be in school/aftercare all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably the working parents who want year round school. They want the childcare.

Year round school has the same number of days in school, the breaks are arranged differently. So the same number of days off. It has nothing to do with child care.

You would end up with 2 weeks off at the end of each quarter, probably 3 weeks at the Winter Break and maybe Spring Break. Summer would be 6 weeks instead of 9-10 weeks.

Essentially, you clearly do not understand the concept of year round school.

NP. I would LOVE to try a modified calendar. My high-FARMs students lose so much ground during the longer summer breaks. I would love to try a different calendar and see if it helps them maintain their growth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably the working parents who want year round school. They want the childcare.

Year round school has the same number of days in school, the breaks are arranged differently. So the same number of days off. It has nothing to do with child care.

You would end up with 2 weeks off at the end of each quarter, probably 3 weeks at the Winter Break and maybe Spring Break. Summer would be 6 weeks instead of 9-10 weeks.

Essentially, you clearly do not understand the concept of year round school.

NP here, this is a much easier schedule for working parents. I have a lot of PTO and can take multiple 2-week breaks, but I can't take 6 weeks at a time. I can ask grandma to watch the kids for 1 week at a time, not for multiple weeks. I can spread out my camp payments instead of spending a fortune all at once in February to cover 10 weeks of summer childcare, and if my kid didn't get into a particular camp we could switch up our plans so she attended during a different break. So even though it is still the same amount of time off, it is still better for childcare reasons.

I would love it. It would prevent summer slide, make off-season travel easier, and give us longer breaks in the winter when it's miserable to be in school/aftercare all day.

+a million

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s probably the working parents who want year round school. They want the childcare.

True year round school has just as much time off, but distributed differently. Kids will still have to go to camps, but not 3 months in a row.

People should stop using the term “year round”. It’s not accurate and is confusing. When FCPS had schools on this type of schedule it was called a modified calendar.

Do we even know that this is what the Governor was referencing?

They can't afford year round. Staff salaries make up 85-90% of the annual school budget. They only way they can find another $50-100 million is to raise taxes and I doubt that will happen based on the current economic climate.

That's not the only way... e.g., they could "find" $36 million of it by just reassigning one or two ES from the West Potomac pyramid to the Mount Vernon pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

It is hardly a novel concept either- most countries don't do a 9-12 week break, we are not the only ones but its also not the majority.

And the idea that "this is something for working parents", as if that's a negative or shouldn't be forced on the "rest of the population"...consider that its only about 18% of households that have a stay at home parent. Working parents are the vast majority and the drivers of policy should reflect that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

Well that and parents who don’t actually want their kids in school when they would prefer to be at the pool and traveling

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

Well that and parents who don’t actually want their kids in school when they would prefer to be at the pool and traveling

Yep - And there will be quite a few of those in the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

Well that and parents who don’t actually want their kids in school when they would prefer to be at the pool and traveling

Yep - And there will be quite a few of those in the way.

+1 - there's a reason that this isn't the norm across the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

Well that and parents who don’t actually want their kids in school when they would prefer to be at the pool and traveling

Yep - And there will be quite a few of those in the way.

+1 - there's a reason that this isn't the norm across the country.

Because we are intractable when it comes to "how it's always been done" as humans and definitely as Americans. And because those who are worried about travel and swimming pools are the ones with the resources to lobby and shape policy, not because they are a majority or representative of what is actually better for most people. The reality is that I'm one of them. But I also know that what's best for me is not necessarily ideal society wide

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

Well that and parents who don’t actually want their kids in school when they would prefer to be at the pool and traveling

+1 As a parent I would not send our kids to year-round school. I like the nice block of summer time so that we can go away for extended vacations and trips. It would be ridiculous to try to deal with a bunch of 2-week breaks here and there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would staff salaries change anyway, given that they'd be teaching the same number of weeks? It's just that their time off is more distributed throughout the year, so why would it cost more?

It wouldn’t! People hear year round and think it means more days. It doesn’t. It means the breaks are split up more evenly throughout the year to prevent slide and promote info retention better.

So funding is not an issue. The only thing stopping this from happening is political will.

Well that and parents who don’t actually want their kids in school when they would prefer to be at the pool and traveling

+1 As a parent I would not send our kids to year-round school. I like the nice block of summer time so that we can go away for extended vacations and trips. It would be ridiculous to try to deal with a bunch of 2-week breaks here and there.

Oh you will if that’s the schedule they implement lol. Did you think school schedules were like choose your own adventure ?