FCPS Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the logistics of adult "enrichment" and supervision for an 800 kid elementary school for 3 hours on Monday afternoons going to work, exactly? They are pulling people from Gatehouse and then...what? Where will the kids physically be?

At school, probably spread out between the gym, cafeteria, and various classrooms - think afterschool clubs, with a little tutoring sprinkled in. The great thing is that if you don’t like it, you can just have your kid take the bus home early. They won’t be looking for your parental approval on the activities. Either your kids stay or they don’t.

But the teachers will be working in the classrooms.

The people from Gatehouse will be running free afterschool clubs? The only aterschool clubs our ES runs are from outside private vendors.

[Anonymous]

There isn't space for 800 kids in the gym and cafeteria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the logistics of adult "enrichment" and supervision for an 800 kid elementary school for 3 hours on Monday afternoons going to work, exactly? They are pulling people from Gatehouse and then...what? Where will the kids physically be?

At school, probably spread out between the gym, cafeteria, and various classrooms - think afterschool clubs, with a little tutoring sprinkled in. The great thing is that if you don’t like it, you can just have your kid take the bus home early. They won’t be looking for your parental approval on the activities. Either your kids stay or they don’t.

But the teachers will be working in the classrooms.

The people from Gatehouse will be running free afterschool clubs? The only aterschool clubs our ES runs are from outside private vendors.

This sounds like a job for the specials teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should go back to every Monday being an early release day and reduce the number of random full days they have off.

(We figured out childcare in that era, you can too.)

This!! Agree....every one survived. It's exhausting hearing that schools are your babysitters-figure this out as parents. I love how on this site the shock and horror of the teacher shortage and parents asking what can we do as parents to help teachers....here is your chance the county is trying to respect teachers time for a change and ensure they are not doing trainings on their own time. You all are crying about how unfair it is and no one cares about the kids. Make up your mind teachers can't do it all during the day and we all know people in the corporate world, federal world-get paid for their time even during trainings. FCPS offers ridiculous stipends to teachers over the sumer-here's 15 an hour for your non-contract time. Teachers are done and saying NO. Good for them! And BTW you all have ample time to figure out actual child care for YOUR children.

Sorry but all of your very valid points fall away when you angrily tell working parents to just “figure out” child care one day a week. Please, I mean this very earnestly, don’t dismiss the fact that this would be a very real and difficult problem for a lot of people.

Sorry for you....figure it out. It's June.

Please just leave the profession if you dislike the kids and their families this much. Or maybe they can add an additional week of training on empathy.

Why on earth do you assume that commenter is a teacher, nothing in their comment remotely suggests they are

+1

[Anonymous]

And of course the meetings on this are in person in June with no virtual option for anyone traveling.

I hope everyone who is pissed about this is signing up for the steering committee. I know I am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I wish the only PD ES got was this. If FCPS would stop piling on things and focused on one thing at a time, I feel like it could be done on SD days and TWD and maybe like 4 ER days instead of 7.

You “feel” like this could be done on TWD? Yeah, no.

DP, also a teacher.
I’d say no to training on TW days, but why not SD and SP days?

[Anonymous]

The teachers will likely be together for the PD sessions. Specialists are exempt. So you’ve got gym and cafeteria (assuming teachers are doing training in the library) as well as classrooms available. Kids can be clustered by grade level.

A lot of kids will go home, especially 5th and 6th graders and kids whose parents WFH.

All of the after school and teacher workday programs (martial arts, KinderCare, etc) are going to offer something.

It’s going to be obnoxious but there will be options available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the logistics of adult "enrichment" and supervision for an 800 kid elementary school for 3 hours on Monday afternoons going to work, exactly? They are pulling people from Gatehouse and then...what? Where will the kids physically be?

At school, probably spread out between the gym, cafeteria, and various classrooms - think afterschool clubs, with a little tutoring sprinkled in. The great thing is that if you don’t like it, you can just have your kid take the bus home early. They won’t be looking for your parental approval on the activities. Either your kids stay or they don’t.

But the teachers will be working in the classrooms.

The people from Gatehouse will be running free afterschool clubs? The only aterschool clubs our ES runs are from outside private vendors.

From the little we’ve heard, there will be outside vendors coming in, Central Office people, current tutors and interventionist, and volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the logistics of adult "enrichment" and supervision for an 800 kid elementary school for 3 hours on Monday afternoons going to work, exactly? They are pulling people from Gatehouse and then...what? Where will the kids physically be?

At school, probably spread out between the gym, cafeteria, and various classrooms - think afterschool clubs, with a little tutoring sprinkled in. The great thing is that if you don’t like it, you can just have your kid take the bus home early. They won’t be looking for your parental approval on the activities. Either your kids stay or they don’t.

But the teachers will be working in the classrooms.

The people from Gatehouse will be running free afterschool clubs? The only aterschool clubs our ES runs are from outside private vendors.

From the little we’ve heard, there will be outside vendors coming in, Central Office people, current tutors and interventionist, and volunteers.

Zero chance central office people go. I can’t emphasize how very little any of them ever interact with children or want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The state should really have funded this mandate. Then they could have done it over the summer.

How are Arlington/alexandria/PWCPS handling it?

There is no way teachers are giving up their precious summer break for training, are you kidding me? All the teachers I know have posted Day 1 and 2 poolside selfies already this week!!!!

I meant extend the contract to come back early in August.

And actually a ton of teachers are doing (unpaid) training this summer. I’m going to AP summer institute next week with hundreds of my colleagues. There is elementary basal resource training at south county this week. The summer academy registration booked up within minutes.

If teachers were paid their regular salary to go to training, you’d have even more.

I’d have to look it up, but I believe that’s part of PWCPS’ new contract. Perhaps FCPS could do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t go through all pages so sorry if covered but how do snow days work for all of FCPS as the fcps page says “ The three-hour early release will not impact the state-mandated number of instructional hours, but it will reduce the amount of built in snow days. ” that means less snow days all around right? Would never say snow day for hs but not es?

Here’s where I think FCPS could improve their messaging. They say things like this and people then think there are extra days on the calendar that exceed what is needed. There are only extra hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I taught when we had early release Mondays and I got so much done on those afternoons. I had time to sit and work and get lessons ready and have meetings and attend trainings. This will make it so much easier for elementary teachers and will help with teacher retention. Kids can only benefit from this. And yes, on occasion I scheduled a medical appointment on a Monday afternoon for myself or my child, which was a lot better than trying to find a substitute and leaving the class with busywork if a qualified sub couldn’t be found.

I taught then too, but I remember them often getting filled with meetings and then planning time T-F was shorter each day. I think the current planning time policy of at least 300 minutes with 240 teacher directed is better if they follow it. That’s what they need to do. Follow the current policy that’s in place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And of course the meetings on this are in person in June with no virtual option for anyone traveling.

I hope everyone who is pissed about this is signing up for the steering committee. I know I am.

The steering committee isn’t going to change the earlier release days that’s already been decided. The steering committee will decide what the students will be doing on those days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the logistics of adult "enrichment" and supervision for an 800 kid elementary school for 3 hours on Monday afternoons going to work, exactly? They are pulling people from Gatehouse and then...what? Where will the kids physically be?

At school, probably spread out between the gym, cafeteria, and various classrooms - think afterschool clubs, with a little tutoring sprinkled in. The great thing is that if you don’t like it, you can just have your kid take the bus home early. They won’t be looking for your parental approval on the activities. Either your kids stay or they don’t.

But the teachers will be working in the classrooms.

The people from Gatehouse will be running free afterschool clubs? The only aterschool clubs our ES runs are from outside private vendors.

From the little we’ve heard, there will be outside vendors coming in, Central Office people, current tutors and interventionist, and volunteers.

Zero chance central office people go. I can’t emphasize how very little any of them ever interact with children or want to.

I agree, they will ABSOLUTELY be used as a last resort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And of course the meetings on this are in person in June with no virtual option for anyone traveling.

I hope everyone who is pissed about this is signing up for the steering committee. I know I am.

The steering committee isn’t going to change the earlier release days that’s already been decided. The steering committee will decide what the students will be doing on those days.

That’s fine! That matters a lot to plenty of us.