Is there ANY way to put the genie back in the bottle re: all of the religious holidays off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kids are still kids...even if we just consider 12-18 year olds, they shouldn't have to "work" a 5-day week just because most adults do. The schedule as it is is as complicated as adults make it. FCPS and local orgs could do more to offer meaningful and fun options for ES/MS students on the days off, and HS (and some MS) parents can make sure their kids use non-5-day-weeks to get work done. It should not be a crisis. Everyone who's raising the proof point of "5-day weeks and consistency help student achievement" should also look at data about how long summer breaks cause huge learning loss and are detrimental to student achievement.

We don't have year round school. We have an inconsistent schedule, and will still have summer learning loss for whatever kids do manage to learn this year.

If we want to move to a year round schedule, it can be done with a consistent schedule. These are not mutually exclusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the same number of days off, just rearranged. Summer is shorter. This is actually better for learning loss. Also, Friday is staff planning day, not religious holiday. It says so on the calendar. Teachers need time to plan or your kids can sit in class all day every day and they won't learn anything because we won't have any time to plan decent lessons.

Well no, it's not better for learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

Good to know you don't value education. Most. parents and teacher do.

EWTF are you talking about. The number of instruction days don't change. If you really value education, your kid would use these extra days to study.

I suspect what you are really upset by is the disruption in CPS daycare for your children.

Well, you're suspicions are completely wrong. Don't need child care, couldn't care less about it.

I want my kid in school 5 days a week, not taking off every random day. Your comment about the "number of instruction days" shows how little you think about this problem.

Why? Seriously, why do you think a 5 day week is important? Before labor laws we had a 6 day week. Why not that?

DP. A five day week is important for lots of reasons. I was an elementary teacher and it is disruptive to have odd days off here and there.

Most classes follow a schedule. This means that the "specials" (music, art, pe, etc) get thrown off. Frequent Mondays off, mean that some kids get cheated out of a special. Same with other isolated days. Early release also throws a monkey wrench into the schedule.

And, not only does it throw off the specials, it can also affect the kids who have IEPs and have special help on a schedule.

And, it affects the regular academic scheduling within a class.

It is extremely disruptive for the students and their families.
Not to mention people taking extra days off to travel, because "after all, they are already missing Friday, so we'll take Thursday, as well."

I teach high school, and we think 4-day weeks are better. In fact, studies show that. We are losing kids left and right who just stop attending because they can't stand the grind and don't have enough time off to complete all the assignments. Plus, a lot of them work and that one day can make the difference between having enough food or not, and dropping out of high school or not. Funny how everyone in elementary doesn't realize there are other people out there with different needs than them.

Do you know how difficult it is to keep the high school kids engaged and attending school with all these 3 and 4 day weeks?

This schedule is just awful for high school kids. They are totally checked out this year due to the disastrous schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, no. One problem is that "floating holidays" or religious leave would cause a ton of operational issues. The other problem is that elementary parents are the only ones who are really bothered by the calendar. I'm a secondary teacher and it's not something anyone complains about. High schoolers and their parents love it because the kids can study for AP exams, visit colleges, and work on those days off. Middle schoolers are happy to have the chance to sleep in and are old enough to be left home unattended so the parents aren't rearranging their schedules.

+100! It's making me so mad that school board members are so ignorant they don't realize this is a handful of the usual loud mouth right winger elementary parents, and the rest of us don't want this. So now they are all posting about how proud they are to support this great cause, without having solicited any real input from the wider community and without having done a lick of research.

Idiots.

The high school kids are sooo disengaged this year with this terrible schedule.

School is a huge joke amongst the teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

You think you are, but have no research and the research that is out there says it doesn’t matter WHEN, but it does matter how many hours.

Show us that research. There is no research that says hours, no matter how incinsistently applied, is the same as a consistent schedule. You're misinterpreting research on alternative schedules.

I already did in at least of these threads. The main research said 180 days is 180 days and the TIME in school matters over placement of the days.
All other research about extending the school year and adding breaks is mixed. Feel free to find the link I already posted in an easy to watch PBS segment or do more research yourself and post that.

I believe the study was comparing a traditional 9-10 month calendar with a year round calendar. I don’t believe any study has been performed where 180 days were randomly selected to hold school over the course of a year to prove time in school mattered over placement of days. Traditional and full year calendars still have consistent 4-5 day school weeks. It’s the distribution of longer breaks that changes.

The researcher who did the study went i. PBS news hour and said it didn’t matter how you get the 180 days, it was the number of hours that matters.

Because of emergencies days and snow days it would be hard to get a study that can accurately show much more than that with a large enough sample size to make a correlation.

Are you talking about the Paul Thompson Oregon State study? He didn't research *inconsistent* school schedules or control for that. You're taking the conclusion that the number of hours matters as a baseline, and applying it overly broad, in a way that is not consistent with the research.

No. Although that particular study also emphasized the importance of instructional hours during the school day.

Here is the PBS quote. I had a longer reply with more studies, but it didn’t submit, so here is a quick quote:

Despite the enthusiasm here for the year-round schedule, the data on its effectiveness are quite mixed. It is not clear that a balanced calendar really helps students retain more information or improves test scores.

A 2015 study found that year-round students do pull ahead during the summer, but students on a traditional nine-month calendar catch up and pull ahead during the rest of the year.

Study author Paul von Hippel:

Well, it is basically the same 175, 180 days spread out differently across the year. And since total instruction doesn't increase, total learning doesn't increase either.

Either way FCPS has a 5 day a week calendar. There isn’t much research about days off during the week, but FCPS has elongated the calendar and shortened summer break while adding in more days off. That is a good thing for many secondary kids.

That said, there is middle ground for FCPS if there are not staffing issues on some of these holidays. The emphasis on world religions and holidays is very important as it helps establish curiosity about the world and widen our kids perspectives. Perhaps some of the days can be more clustered with weekends, or perhaps the board and parents can see gain their own perspective and see the forest through the trees. This years calendar was a hard one and the snow days and extra voting days really added to a lot of frustration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

Good to know you don't value education. Most. parents and teacher do.

EWTF are you talking about. The number of instruction days don't change. If you really value education, your kid would use these extra days to study.

I suspect what you are really upset by is the disruption in CPS daycare for your children.

Well, you're suspicions are completely wrong. Don't need child care, couldn't care less about it.

I want my kid in school 5 days a week, not taking off every random day. Your comment about the "number of instruction days" shows how little you think about this problem.

Why? Seriously, why do you think a 5 day week is important? Before labor laws we had a 6 day week. Why not that?

DP. A five day week is important for lots of reasons. I was an elementary teacher and it is disruptive to have odd days off here and there.

Most classes follow a schedule. This means that the "specials" (music, art, pe, etc) get thrown off. Frequent Mondays off, mean that some kids get cheated out of a special. Same with other isolated days. Early release also throws a monkey wrench into the schedule.

And, not only does it throw off the specials, it can also affect the kids who have IEPs and have special help on a schedule.

And, it affects the regular academic scheduling within a class.

It is extremely disruptive for the students and their families.
Not to mention people taking extra days off to travel, because "after all, they are already missing Friday, so we'll take Thursday, as well."

I teach high school, and we think 4-day weeks are better. In fact, studies show that. We are losing kids left and right who just stop attending because they can't stand the grind and don't have enough time off to complete all the assignments. Plus, a lot of them work and that one day can make the difference between having enough food or not, and dropping out of high school or not. Funny how everyone in elementary doesn't realize there are other people out there with different needs than them.

Do you know how difficult it is to keep the high school kids engaged and attending school with all these 3 and 4 day weeks?

This schedule is just awful for high school kids. They are totally checked out this year due to the disastrous schedule.

You clearly aren't a high school teacher. High school kids being checked out has nothing to do with the schedule, and it's hardly new this year. If anything, high school kids are the ones who really need the time off for things like jobs, college applications, homework assignments. The only ones complaining are elementary parents who think school is their free daycare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

You think you are, but have no research and the research that is out there says it doesn’t matter WHEN, but it does matter how many hours.

Show us that research. There is no research that says hours, no matter how incinsistently applied, is the same as a consistent schedule. You're misinterpreting research on alternative schedules.

I already did in at least of these threads. The main research said 180 days is 180 days and the TIME in school matters over placement of the days.
All other research about extending the school year and adding breaks is mixed. Feel free to find the link I already posted in an easy to watch PBS segment or do more research yourself and post that.

I believe the study was comparing a traditional 9-10 month calendar with a year round calendar. I don’t believe any study has been performed where 180 days were randomly selected to hold school over the course of a year to prove time in school mattered over placement of days. Traditional and full year calendars still have consistent 4-5 day school weeks. It’s the distribution of longer breaks that changes.

The researcher who did the study went i. PBS news hour and said it didn’t matter how you get the 180 days, it was the number of hours that matters.

Because of emergencies days and snow days it would be hard to get a study that can accurately show much more than that with a large enough sample size to make a correlation.

Are you talking about the Paul Thompson Oregon State study? He didn't research *inconsistent* school schedules or control for that. You're taking the conclusion that the number of hours matters as a baseline, and applying it overly broad, in a way that is not consistent with the research.

No. Although that particular study also emphasized the importance of instructional hours during the school day.

Here is the PBS quote. I had a longer reply with more studies, but it didn’t submit, so here is a quick quote:

Despite the enthusiasm here for the year-round schedule, the data on its effectiveness are quite mixed. It is not clear that a balanced calendar really helps students retain more information or improves test scores.

A 2015 study found that year-round students do pull ahead during the summer, but students on a traditional nine-month calendar catch up and pull ahead during the rest of the year.

Study author Paul von Hippel:

Well, it is basically the same 175, 180 days spread out differently across the year. And since total instruction doesn't increase, total learning doesn't increase either.

Either way FCPS has a 5 day a week calendar. There isn’t much research about days off during the week, but FCPS has elongated the calendar and shortened summer break while adding in more days off. That is a good thing for many secondary kids.

That said, there is middle ground for FCPS if there are not staffing issues on some of these holidays. The emphasis on world religions and holidays is very important as it helps establish curiosity about the world and widen our kids perspectives. Perhaps some of the days can be more clustered with weekends, or perhaps the board and parents can see gain their own perspective and see the forest through the trees. This years calendar was a hard one and the snow days and extra voting days really added to a lot of frustration.

I've lived in a place where we had year-round public school and it didn't happen by taking random days off throughout the year to extend the schedule. That's the absolute worst of both ideas. You end up with a schedule where kids never get a break because school is stretched over every bit of time. There's never real down time because every day off you should be doing homework or projects or studying, and you can't get into any real schedule or routine because it's constantly changing.

A good year-round schedule looks like a 2-week break between each quarter and consistent school during the quarter. The schedule had two weeks off in October, two weeks off in December, and two weeks off in March, plus 4 weeks off in July. Because the brakes fall between the quarters, kids are really off during this time and can rest and recharge. They don't have projects or homework to do during this time. The only days off during the quarter were those for major holidays like Thanksgiving. Kids went to school on the minor holidays so they had consistent 5-day weeks. It was a great schedule and kids and teachers really liked it. Families really liked that they could travel and vacation at non-peak times as well.

I don't see it happening here but trying to equate the mess of a schedule we have with year-round schooling is farcical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

You think you are, but have no research and the research that is out there says it doesn’t matter WHEN, but it does matter how many hours.

Show us that research. There is no research that says hours, no matter how incinsistently applied, is the same as a consistent schedule. You're misinterpreting research on alternative schedules.

I already did in at least of these threads. The main research said 180 days is 180 days and the TIME in school matters over placement of the days.
All other research about extending the school year and adding breaks is mixed. Feel free to find the link I already posted in an easy to watch PBS segment or do more research yourself and post that.

I believe the study was comparing a traditional 9-10 month calendar with a year round calendar. I don’t believe any study has been performed where 180 days were randomly selected to hold school over the course of a year to prove time in school mattered over placement of days. Traditional and full year calendars still have consistent 4-5 day school weeks. It’s the distribution of longer breaks that changes.

The researcher who did the study went i. PBS news hour and said it didn’t matter how you get the 180 days, it was the number of hours that matters.

Because of emergencies days and snow days it would be hard to get a study that can accurately show much more than that with a large enough sample size to make a correlation.

Are you talking about the Paul Thompson Oregon State study? He didn't research *inconsistent* school schedules or control for that. You're taking the conclusion that the number of hours matters as a baseline, and applying it overly broad, in a way that is not consistent with the research.

No. Although that particular study also emphasized the importance of instructional hours during the school day.

Here is the PBS quote. I had a longer reply with more studies, but it didn’t submit, so here is a quick quote:

Despite the enthusiasm here for the year-round schedule, the data on its effectiveness are quite mixed. It is not clear that a balanced calendar really helps students retain more information or improves test scores.

A 2015 study found that year-round students do pull ahead during the summer, but students on a traditional nine-month calendar catch up and pull ahead during the rest of the year.

Study author Paul von Hippel:

Well, it is basically the same 175, 180 days spread out differently across the year. And since total instruction doesn't increase, total learning doesn't increase either.

Either way FCPS has a 5 day a week calendar. There isn’t much research about days off during the week, but FCPS has elongated the calendar and shortened summer break while adding in more days off. That is a good thing for many secondary kids.

That said, there is middle ground for FCPS if there are not staffing issues on some of these holidays. The emphasis on world religions and holidays is very important as it helps establish curiosity about the world and widen our kids perspectives. Perhaps some of the days can be more clustered with weekends, or perhaps the board and parents can see gain their own perspective and see the forest through the trees. This years calendar was a hard one and the snow days and extra voting days really added to a lot of frustration.

Yes, that's right, there *isn't* research that says random days off will lead to the same learning outcomes as long as you have enough hours.

Both of these studies discuss having enough hours of instruction but ultimately are looking at larger scheduling variations. These studies don't speak to the changes FCPS has made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School board voted down having school on Columbus Day, even though FCPS has more non-5-day weeks than any other large school district in the country

Thank God. It was a ridiculous proposal to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School board voted down having school on Columbus Day, even though FCPS has more non-5-day weeks than any other large school district in the country

From Melanie Meren's Facebook post, they did vote to have school on Veteran's Day. They also voted to limit half days to 8 days per year (proposal was for 4) -- I am hoping this is a hard limit for all half days because if not, this seems no different than the current situation as elementary kids had 8 3hr early releases this year. I can live with elementary having 4 of the 3 hr early releases in addition to the traditional 2 hr early release for all at the end of the quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School board voted down having school on Columbus Day, even though FCPS has more non-5-day weeks than any other large school district in the country

From Melanie Meren's Facebook post, they did vote to have school on Veteran's Day. They also voted to limit half days to 8 days per year (proposal was for 4) -- I am hoping this is a hard limit for all half days because if not, this seems no different than the current situation as elementary kids had 8 3hr early releases this year. I can live with elementary having 4 of the 3 hr early releases in addition to the traditional 2 hr early release for all at the end of the quarter.

The 8 days are the early release days at elem, not the early release days due to quarter end, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School board voted down having school on Columbus Day, even though FCPS has more non-5-day weeks than any other large school district in the country

From Melanie Meren's Facebook post, they did vote to have school on Veteran's Day. They also voted to limit half days to 8 days per year (proposal was for 4) -- I am hoping this is a hard limit for all half days because if not, this seems no different than the current situation as elementary kids had 8 3hr early releases this year. I can live with elementary having 4 of the 3 hr early releases in addition to the traditional 2 hr early release for all at the end of the quarter.

Ugh. Another wasted day with assemblies, breakfasts, parades, and guest speakers from certain families. And forced activities related to the military. Basically no instruction. Thanks a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School board voted down having school on Columbus Day, even though FCPS has more non-5-day weeks than any other large school district in the country

From Melanie Meren's Facebook post, they did vote to have school on Veteran's Day. They also voted to limit half days to 8 days per year (proposal was for 4) -- I am hoping this is a hard limit for all half days because if not, this seems no different than the current situation as elementary kids had 8 3hr early releases this year. I can live with elementary having 4 of the 3 hr early releases in addition to the traditional 2 hr early release for all at the end of the quarter.

Ugh. Another wasted day with assemblies, breakfasts, parades, and guest speakers from certain families. And forced activities related to the military. Basically no instruction. Thanks a lot.

Of the 2 elementary schools my children attend, both just moved to doing these things to the last school day before Veteran's Day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

You think you are, but have no research and the research that is out there says it doesn’t matter WHEN, but it does matter how many hours.

Show us that research. There is no research that says hours, no matter how incinsistently applied, is the same as a consistent schedule. You're misinterpreting research on alternative schedules.

I already did in at least of these threads. The main research said 180 days is 180 days and the TIME in school matters over placement of the days.
All other research about extending the school year and adding breaks is mixed. Feel free to find the link I already posted in an easy to watch PBS segment or do more research yourself and post that.

I believe the study was comparing a traditional 9-10 month calendar with a year round calendar. I don’t believe any study has been performed where 180 days were randomly selected to hold school over the course of a year to prove time in school mattered over placement of days. Traditional and full year calendars still have consistent 4-5 day school weeks. It’s the distribution of longer breaks that changes.

The researcher who did the study went i. PBS news hour and said it didn’t matter how you get the 180 days, it was the number of hours that matters.

Because of emergencies days and snow days it would be hard to get a study that can accurately show much more than that with a large enough sample size to make a correlation.

Are you talking about the Paul Thompson Oregon State study? He didn't research *inconsistent* school schedules or control for that. You're taking the conclusion that the number of hours matters as a baseline, and applying it overly broad, in a way that is not consistent with the research.

No. Although that particular study also emphasized the importance of instructional hours during the school day.

Here is the PBS quote. I had a longer reply with more studies, but it didn’t submit, so here is a quick quote:

Despite the enthusiasm here for the year-round schedule, the data on its effectiveness are quite mixed. It is not clear that a balanced calendar really helps students retain more information or improves test scores.

A 2015 study found that year-round students do pull ahead during the summer, but students on a traditional nine-month calendar catch up and pull ahead during the rest of the year.

Study author Paul von Hippel:

Well, it is basically the same 175, 180 days spread out differently across the year. And since total instruction doesn't increase, total learning doesn't increase either.

Either way FCPS has a 5 day a week calendar. There isn’t much research about days off during the week, but FCPS has elongated the calendar and shortened summer break while adding in more days off. That is a good thing for many secondary kids.

That said, there is middle ground for FCPS if there are not staffing issues on some of these holidays. The emphasis on world religions and holidays is very important as it helps establish curiosity about the world and widen our kids perspectives. Perhaps some of the days can be more clustered with weekends, or perhaps the board and parents can see gain their own perspective and see the forest through the trees. This years calendar was a hard one and the snow days and extra voting days really added to a lot of frustration.

I've lived in a place where we had year-round public school and it didn't happen by taking random days off throughout the year to extend the schedule. That's the absolute worst of both ideas. You end up with a schedule where kids never get a break because school is stretched over every bit of time. There's never real down time because every day off you should be doing homework or projects or studying, and you can't get into any real schedule or routine because it's constantly changing.

A good year-round schedule looks like a 2-week break between each quarter and consistent school during the quarter. The schedule had two weeks off in October, two weeks off in December, and two weeks off in March, plus 4 weeks off in July. Because the brakes fall between the quarters, kids are really off during this time and can rest and recharge. They don't have projects or homework to do during this time. The only days off during the quarter were those for major holidays like Thanksgiving. Kids went to school on the minor holidays so they had consistent 5-day weeks. It was a great schedule and kids and teachers really liked it. Families really liked that they could travel and vacation at non-peak times as well.

I don't see it happening here but trying to equate the mess of a schedule we have with year-round schooling is farcical.

Honestly, that's my dream as a parent! 2 week breaks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:School board voted down having school on Columbus Day, even though FCPS has more non-5-day weeks than any other large school district in the country

From Melanie Meren's Facebook post, they did vote to have school on Veteran's Day. They also voted to limit half days to 8 days per year (proposal was for 4) -- I am hoping this is a hard limit for all half days because if not, this seems no different than the current situation as elementary kids had 8 3hr early releases this year. I can live with elementary having 4 of the 3 hr early releases in addition to the traditional 2 hr early release for all at the end of the quarter.

Ugh. Another wasted day with assemblies, breakfasts, parades, and guest speakers from certain families. And forced activities related to the military. Basically no instruction. Thanks a lot.

Of the 2 elementary schools my children attend, both just moved to doing these things to the last school day before Veteran's Day.

Ours pared it down considerably. It was limited to the breakfast and parade.