Earlier start date proposed for MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Christmas is a state and federal holiday.

So are Columbus Day and Veterans Day.

And they were taken away for Jewish holidays. What is your point? Do you want to have school on Christmas Day? 96% of of Christians and 80% of non-Christians celebrate Christmas in the US which is 91% of the country. That is actually MORE people than any non-religious holiday including Thanksgiving where only 83% celebrate. Sure the school can say they will open. Even if they forced teachers and staff to come in, there would be 3-4 kids tops in each class that would show up. But yes, keep proving your point on Christmas. It isn't getting old.

They were? You were in Montgomery County before MCPS started closing for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (whenever MCPS started doing that; I still don't know when that was), and before then, MCPS closed for Columbus Day and Veterans Day?

Yes the same exact year, 1973 for MCPS and 1979 for HCPS

I don't think that this is correct. The BoE cited absentee rates for Rosh Hashanah in 1973. Therefore there was school on Rosh Hashanah in 1973.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/school-board-approves-calendar-policy-amid-debate-about-muslim-holidays/2015/09/11/16aef05e-5893-11e5-b8c9-944725fcd3b9_story.html

Also, other school districts in Maryland don't close for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and also don't close for Columbus Day or Veterans Day. In fact, I looked at five or six calendars for school districts in Maryland and didn't find any that do close on those two federal holidays.

[Anonymous]

I felt no annoyance at all about the closure for a Muslim holiday until it completely messed up the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I felt no annoyance at all about the closure for a Muslim holiday until it completely messed up the calendar.

Exactly. BOE's bad decisions are building resentment for the Muslim holiday/community. And the last thing we need these days!

Same issue when the removed all religious holidays when Muslim groups asked for them to list Eid on the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Disgusted.

[Anonymous]

Please email the BOE today if you have any concerns.

[Anonymous]

I am re-watching the November meeting now.

First, in the meeting Mr. Durso refers to "the 2 holidays added 40 years ago," which I assume is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He doesn't say "swapped" for Columbus Day and Veteran's Day.

Also, when the calendar was presented, it was stated that having a start date 2 weeks before Labor Day was interesting to many stakeholders, but the Facilities dept. also requested waiting until 2017-2018 due to building readiness and wanting a full school year to acclimate to new bell times before another implementing another major system-wide change.



I really wish they would have voted to put this effective 2017-2018 due to the number of problems with an implementation for the 2016-2017 year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher in MCPS. I truly don't understand this. For all the years I've attended and worked in MCPS, I have heard that MCPS only closes for religious holidays if they present an operational issue. In this situation, they are clearly closing due to religious reasons, not operational reasons.

Now the Board is changing its tune and saying that they will close school for students due to a religious holiday, but still make it a working day for staff. I don't celebrate the holiday in question, so I have no problem going to work on that day. But now we're potentially changing the start date to acknowledge a religious holiday?

The holiday in question does not fall on the same day during each calendar year. So how is the Board going to handle this in the following years?

There was a survey sent out by MCEA asking teachers to rank their choices for the 2016-2017 calendar year. The overwhelming reaction from teachers in MCPS was that it won't matter what teachers think. The Board didn't seem to care about what teachers thought about bell times or final exams, so why waste our time filling out yet another survey? But for those interested, here were the options from which to choose...

Option A - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and bump the last instructional day to Friday 6/16, and the last professional day to Monday 6/19
Option B - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and add back in an instructional day on Monday 4/10
Option C - swap a professional day to 9/12 by removing one of the end-of-marking period grading days
Option D - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, with the first instruction day being moved up to Friday 8/26
Option E - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, but avoid starting school on a Friday by moving up pre-service to Thurs 8/18, the first instruction day Wed. 8/24, and the final professional day to Tues. 6/13

In my opinion, they all suck. We need 5 professional days at the beginning of the year (at least in elementary to set up rooms), and we need the professional days at the end of the marking periods for grading and reporting. If the Board wants to add a professional day, that's fine by me. But do not remove existing professional days for religious reasons.

Please contact the Board this weekend if you disagree with their decision. They don't listen to teachers, but they will (?) listen to parents.

Dear MCPS teacher.

Thanks for posting this. A couple of questions...

On Option A, don't you mean moving the last day from Friday 6/16 to be Monday 6/19? The last day was previously scheduled to be Friday, 6/16.

On Option B, is the reference to 4/10 correct, or did you mean 4/17? I know that the state mandates Easter Monday. But I also know based on 2013-2014 school year, the county can ask for a wavier to Easter Monday as a holiday. Doing 4/10 and then having 5 school days off makes about 0% sense. Doing 4/17 is at least reasonable, even though it isn't traditional for the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher in MCPS. I truly don't understand this. For all the years I've attended and worked in MCPS, I have heard that MCPS only closes for religious holidays if they present an operational issue. In this situation, they are clearly closing due to religious reasons, not operational reasons.

Now the Board is changing its tune and saying that they will close school for students due to a religious holiday, but still make it a working day for staff. I don't celebrate the holiday in question, so I have no problem going to work on that day. But now we're potentially changing the start date to acknowledge a religious holiday?

The holiday in question does not fall on the same day during each calendar year. So how is the Board going to handle this in the following years?

There was a survey sent out by MCEA asking teachers to rank their choices for the 2016-2017 calendar year. The overwhelming reaction from teachers in MCPS was that it won't matter what teachers think. The Board didn't seem to care about what teachers thought about bell times or final exams, so why waste our time filling out yet another survey? But for those interested, here were the options from which to choose...

Option A - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and bump the last instructional day to Friday 6/16, and the last professional day to Monday 6/19
Option B - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and add back in an instructional day on Monday 4/10
Option C - swap a professional day to 9/12 by removing one of the end-of-marking period grading days
Option D - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, with the first instruction day being moved up to Friday 8/26
Option E - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, but avoid starting school on a Friday by moving up pre-service to Thurs 8/18, the first instruction day Wed. 8/24, and the final professional day to Tues. 6/13

In my opinion, they all suck. We need 5 professional days at the beginning of the year (at least in elementary to set up rooms), and we need the professional days at the end of the marking periods for grading and reporting. If the Board wants to add a professional day, that's fine by me. But do not remove existing professional days for religious reasons.

Please contact the Board this weekend if you disagree with their decision. They don't listen to teachers, but they will (?) listen to parents.

Dear MCPS teacher.

Thanks for posting this. A couple of questions...

On Option A, don't you mean moving the last day from Friday 6/16 to be Monday 6/19? The last day was previously scheduled to be Friday, 6/16.

On Option B, is the reference to 4/10 correct, or did you mean 4/17? I know that the state mandates Easter Monday. But I also know based on 2013-2014 school year, the county can ask for a wavier to Easter Monday as a holiday. Doing 4/10 and then having 5 school days off makes about 0% sense. Doing 4/17 is at least reasonable, even though it isn't traditional for the calendar.

I"m the teacher PP you quoted (home with a sick kid). I copied and pasted straight from the survey MCEA sent to us. I wouldn't be surprised if there were errors. But I can't answer your questions because I just relayed the exact information that was sent to MCEA members. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher in MCPS. I truly don't understand this. For all the years I've attended and worked in MCPS, I have heard that MCPS only closes for religious holidays if they present an operational issue. In this situation, they are clearly closing due to religious reasons, not operational reasons.

Now the Board is changing its tune and saying that they will close school for students due to a religious holiday, but still make it a working day for staff. I don't celebrate the holiday in question, so I have no problem going to work on that day. But now we're potentially changing the start date to acknowledge a religious holiday?

The holiday in question does not fall on the same day during each calendar year. So how is the Board going to handle this in the following years?

There was a survey sent out by MCEA asking teachers to rank their choices for the 2016-2017 calendar year. The overwhelming reaction from teachers in MCPS was that it won't matter what teachers think. The Board didn't seem to care about what teachers thought about bell times or final exams, so why waste our time filling out yet another survey? But for those interested, here were the options from which to choose...

Option A - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and bump the last instructional day to Friday 6/16, and the last professional day to Monday 6/19
Option B - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and add back in an instructional day on Monday 4/10
Option C - swap a professional day to 9/12 by removing one of the end-of-marking period grading days
Option D - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, with the first instruction day being moved up to Friday 8/26
Option E - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, but avoid starting school on a Friday by moving up pre-service to Thurs 8/18, the first instruction day Wed. 8/24, and the final professional day to Tues. 6/13

In my opinion, they all suck. We need 5 professional days at the beginning of the year (at least in elementary to set up rooms), and we need the professional days at the end of the marking periods for grading and reporting. If the Board wants to add a professional day, that's fine by me. But do not remove existing professional days for religious reasons.

Please contact the Board this weekend if you disagree with their decision. They don't listen to teachers, but they will (?) listen to parents.

Dear MCPS teacher.

Thanks for posting this. A couple of questions...

On Option A, don't you mean moving the last day from Friday 6/16 to be Monday 6/19? The last day was previously scheduled to be Friday, 6/16.

On Option B, is the reference to 4/10 correct, or did you mean 4/17? I know that the state mandates Easter Monday. But I also know based on 2013-2014 school year, the county can ask for a wavier to Easter Monday as a holiday. Doing 4/10 and then having 5 school days off makes about 0% sense. Doing 4/17 is at least reasonable, even though it isn't traditional for the calendar.

I"m the teacher PP you quoted (home with a sick kid). I copied and pasted straight from the survey MCEA sent to us. I wouldn't be surprised if there were errors. But I can't answer your questions because I just relayed the exact information that was sent to MCEA members. Sorry.

I don't think they'd give back Easter Monday. That's probably why 4/17 isn't an option and 4/10 is the closest other option. But I think any option that has a 1-day school week is not a good solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am re-watching the November meeting now.

First, in the meeting Mr. Durso refers to "the 2 holidays added 40 years ago," which I assume is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He doesn't say "swapped" for Columbus Day and Veteran's Day.

Also, when the calendar was presented, it was stated that having a start date 2 weeks before Labor Day was interesting to many stakeholders, but the Facilities dept. also requested waiting until 2017-2018 due to building readiness and wanting a full school year to acclimate to new bell times before another implementing another major system-wide change.


I really wish they would have voted to put this effective 2017-2018 due to the number of problems with an implementation for the 2016-2017 year.

I just finished re-watching the meeting.

Dr. Docca does say later than the school year calendar gave up Columbus Day and Veteran's Day for the 2 RH and YK.

O'Neill and Smondrowski were interested in using the MCEA teacher conference day as a day of instruction. Smondrowski's voice was rather quiet - she was talking to/with Barclay when he was speaking, but you could tell that was her point. She also wanted to reduce the calendar to 183 days, but there are payroll issues with the union on that option. (Plus the reality that 183 days is really not enough.)

My letter to the BOE is ready. To me, a big thing is that Facilities requested extra time without a major systemwide change which now is being fully ignored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am re-watching the November meeting now.

First, in the meeting Mr. Durso refers to "the 2 holidays added 40 years ago," which I assume is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He doesn't say "swapped" for Columbus Day and Veteran's Day.

Also, when the calendar was presented, it was stated that having a start date 2 weeks before Labor Day was interesting to many stakeholders, but the Facilities dept. also requested waiting until 2017-2018 due to building readiness and wanting a full school year to acclimate to new bell times before another implementing another major system-wide change.


I really wish they would have voted to put this effective 2017-2018 due to the number of problems with an implementation for the 2016-2017 year.

I just finished re-watching the meeting.

Dr. Docca does say later than the school year calendar gave up Columbus Day and Veteran's Day for the 2 RH and YK.

O'Neill and Smondrowski were interested in using the MCEA teacher conference day as a day of instruction. Smondrowski's voice was rather quiet - she was talking to/with Barclay when he was speaking, but you could tell that was her point. She also wanted to reduce the calendar to 183 days, but there are payroll issues with the union on that option. (Plus the reality that 183 days is really not enough.)

My letter to the BOE is ready. To me, a big thing is that Facilities requested extra time without a major systemwide change which now is being fully ignored.

So on the years that RH and /or YK fall on weekends, do we end the school year earlier? Or do we just have more instructional days those years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I just finished re-watching the meeting.

Dr. Docca does say later than the school year calendar gave up Columbus Day and Veteran's Day for the 2 RH and YK.

O'Neill and Smondrowski were interested in using the MCEA teacher conference day as a day of instruction. Smondrowski's voice was rather quiet - she was talking to/with Barclay when he was speaking, but you could tell that was her point. She also wanted to reduce the calendar to 183 days, but there are payroll issues with the union on that option. (Plus the reality that 183 days is really not enough.)

My letter to the BOE is ready. To me, a big thing is that Facilities requested extra time without a major systemwide change which now is being fully ignored.

Then what did the other school systems that don't close on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give Columbus Day and Veteran's Day up for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am re-watching the November meeting now.

First, in the meeting Mr. Durso refers to "the 2 holidays added 40 years ago," which I assume is Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. He doesn't say "swapped" for Columbus Day and Veteran's Day.

Also, when the calendar was presented, it was stated that having a start date 2 weeks before Labor Day was interesting to many stakeholders, but the Facilities dept. also requested waiting until 2017-2018 due to building readiness and wanting a full school year to acclimate to new bell times before another implementing another major system-wide change.


I really wish they would have voted to put this effective 2017-2018 due to the number of problems with an implementation for the 2016-2017 year.

I just finished re-watching the meeting.

Dr. Docca does say later than the school year calendar gave up Columbus Day and Veteran's Day for the 2 RH and YK.

O'Neill and Smondrowski were interested in using the MCEA teacher conference day as a day of instruction. Smondrowski's voice was rather quiet - she was talking to/with Barclay when he was speaking, but you could tell that was her point. She also wanted to reduce the calendar to 183 days, but there are payroll issues with the union on that option. (Plus the reality that 183 days is really not enough.)

My letter to the BOE is ready. To me, a big thing is that Facilities requested extra time without a major systemwide change which now is being fully ignored.

So on the years that RH and /or YK fall on weekends, do we end the school year earlier? Or do we just have more instructional days those years?

The school year is always 184 days, regardless of the timing of RH or YK. (They will both NEVER be on a weekend.) 184 days is just reached a day faster.

2016-2017 is full of a lot of interruptions - they also have holidays for election day and Presidential inauguration.

[Anonymous]

Correcting... 184 INSTRUCTIONAL days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I just finished re-watching the meeting.

Dr. Docca does say later than the school year calendar gave up Columbus Day and Veteran's Day for the 2 RH and YK.

O'Neill and Smondrowski were interested in using the MCEA teacher conference day as a day of instruction. Smondrowski's voice was rather quiet - she was talking to/with Barclay when he was speaking, but you could tell that was her point. She also wanted to reduce the calendar to 183 days, but there are payroll issues with the union on that option. (Plus the reality that 183 days is really not enough.)

My letter to the BOE is ready. To me, a big thing is that Facilities requested extra time without a major systemwide change which now is being fully ignored.

Then what did the other school systems that don't close on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give Columbus Day and Veteran's Day up for?

Maybe they liked how MCPS was using the two days as an observation day and parent/teacher conference day. Or maybe they realized that it was a lot more fun to end the school year 2 days earlier in June!