2023-24 draft calendar scenarios to be reviewed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Longer and frequent breaks is far better.

Kids get time.
Families can travel.

+1

It makes no sense to cram all vacations and breaks in 2-3 months. It's far better to spread it out. International families can travel and kids can get break.

Agree so much. I do appreciate that many have already planned their vacation for late August next year.... but I hope that if this is a reason to keep the later start for the coming year, we can take the time to address it sooner for future years.

How many people in MoCo actually have a "bought and paid for" vacation already for August 2023? I am guessing that is a small fraction of families.

I think you’d be surprised, plus camp schedules are already coming out. Our own extended family is waiting on us/this info for a group trip. People need to be able to plan. This is really late to be changing the weeks in any significant fashion.

Totally agree!

[Anonymous]

Option A!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Option A!!

Too early; a lot of sleep-away kids signed up last summer for August camps. I do not mind an earlier start, but they need to give more notice

[Anonymous]

Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

If you consider how much non-instructional time MCPS public school kids have (e.g. - promethean board (Go Noodle), magic school bus videos, journal time, free choice, etc.), I'm OK with the extra 5 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

If you consider how much non-instructional time MCPS public school kids have (e.g. - promethean board (Go Noodle), magic school bus videos, journal time, free choice, etc.), I'm OK with the extra 5 days.

God forbid children WRITE IN JOURNALS? *gasp* the horror!

Ridiculous. Parents in this country are truly deranged. (And I say this as a parent in this county. It's unfortunate that I have to deal with others that think this way at my kid's school)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

How long has it been since you actually looked at an official MCPS calendar? MCPS has been scheduling 182 for the past 5+ years, including in these options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

How long has it been since you actually looked at an official MCPS calendar? MCPS has been scheduling 182 for the past 5+ years, including in these options.

my kid is in private in moco and we do 180 days. Not 168. Not sure where u got your numbers from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Longer and frequent breaks is far better.

Kids get time.
Families can travel.

+1

It makes no sense to cram all vacations and breaks in 2-3 months. It's far better to spread it out. International families can travel and kids can get break.

Agree so much. I do appreciate that many have already planned their vacation for late August next year.... but I hope that if this is a reason to keep the later start for the coming year, we can take the time to address it sooner for future years.

How many people in MoCo actually have a "bought and paid for" vacation already for August 2023? I am guessing that is a small fraction of families.

I think you’d be surprised, plus camp schedules are already coming out. Our own extended family is waiting on us/this info for a group trip. People need to be able to plan. This is really late to be changing the weeks in any significant fashion.

Agree. This doesn’t just affect vacations but camps would have to shift schedules too. But yeah, lots of people take august vacations, including teachers. Our next door neighbor is a teacher and their kids are on swim team, so august is the only time that works (obviously not the week before school starts, but often the week before that).

Not to say none of this could shift, I just wouldn’t do it next year unless there was a really compelling reason. Give everyone a heads up for 2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

How long has it been since you actually looked at an official MCPS calendar? MCPS has been scheduling 182 for the past 5+ years, including in these options.

And never actually has 182 because of “snow” days. Often we are below 180 and get waivers from the state

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Longer and frequent breaks is far better.

Kids get time.
Families can travel.

+1

It makes no sense to cram all vacations and breaks in 2-3 months. It's far better to spread it out. International families can travel and kids can get break.

Agree so much. I do appreciate that many have already planned their vacation for late August next year.... but I hope that if this is a reason to keep the later start for the coming year, we can take the time to address it sooner for future years.

How many people in MoCo actually have a "bought and paid for" vacation already for August 2023? I am guessing that is a small fraction of families.

It may be less than 1% of total school population.

But 90% of the DCUM population, which is all that people here think MCPS should care about!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Longer and frequent breaks is far better.

Kids get time.
Families can travel.

+1

It makes no sense to cram all vacations and breaks in 2-3 months. It's far better to spread it out. International families can travel and kids can get break.

Agree so much. I do appreciate that many have already planned their vacation for late August next year.... but I hope that if this is a reason to keep the later start for the coming year, we can take the time to address it sooner for future years.

How many people in MoCo actually have a "bought and paid for" vacation already for August 2023? I am guessing that is a small fraction of families.

I think you’d be surprised, plus camp schedules are already coming out. Our own extended family is waiting on us/this info for a group trip. People need to be able to plan. This is really late to be changing the weeks in any significant fashion.

Agree. This doesn’t just affect vacations but camps would have to shift schedules too. But yeah, lots of people take august vacations, including teachers. Our next door neighbor is a teacher and their kids are on swim team, so august is the only time that works (obviously not the week before school starts, but often the week before that).

Not to say none of this could shift, I just wouldn’t do it next year unless there was a really compelling reason. Give everyone a heads up for 2024.

+1. Also, nowhere in this state opens as early as August 14. Places that open in mid or early August in other regions end around Memorial Day or the week after. We are still ending mid June in 2023, so I think the shift earlier needs to be done incrementally, although for the record, I absolutely do not think kids should go back to school mid August at all. They are really trying to suck the joy of childhood in MCPS. This is just another example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does MCPS insist on 185 school days when only 180 are required by the state? Private schools are only required to have 168. Unions aren’t allowed to negotiate this. Parents need to complain.

If you consider how much non-instructional time MCPS public school kids have (e.g. - promethean board (Go Noodle), magic school bus videos, journal time, free choice, etc.), I'm OK with the extra 5 days.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. My 2nd grader has 90 minute blocks for math and reading. Then, there is health, science, and social studies. 4 specials classes a week, lunch and recess. Our school doesn’t even do class bathroom breaks! They are getting enough instructional time. More days in school doesn’t fix anything. MCPS is too cheap to hire more staff and have smaller class sizes so that teachers could be more efficient with their instructional time.

[Anonymous]

Another thing parents don’t seem to get is that more doesn’t always equal better. At the end of the year, students are burned out. 5 extra days isn’t going to do much if they aren’t focused and don’t want to be there. Really putting those phds to good use.

[Anonymous]

Preliminary survey results are in the policy management committee memo for Monday:

Scenario D is the preference of 33.4% of respondents so far
Scenario B 25.4%
Scenario C 18.3%
Scenario A 11.3%


https://go.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/CLAKUQ539747/$file/2023-2024%20SY%20Calendar%20Update%20and%20Addenum%20A%20and%20B.pdf