Will FCPS ever Reopem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It feels like last year they only used like 1 snow day, and got criticized
, because we didn’t get those days back. So this year, they are determined to use every single one.

Problem: no one knows if a snowmageddon is going to coliseum school for 7 days in late February.

13 days is a LOT of snow days to have built in. Even if there's a snowmageddon, students will have very little--if any--time to make up.

Fcps and LCPS cheated to do this. Instead of adding days, they added minutes to each day. It’s exploiting a loophole, not showing concern for actual instruction time. Adding ten minutes to each day does not make up for all these days off.

You complained so much about half day Mondays, you wanted them gone. The consequence of getting rid of half day Mondays is getting rid of snow makeup days, too.

This isn't right. The half day Mondays aren't the reason. They wanted to set a firm end of the year date. In order to do that, they had to "build in" snow days. Except, they didn't actually build in snow days. They simply pretended to count time 10 min before the actual school day and 10 min after the actual school day (20 min total per day) as "instructional time." This is simply an imaginary accounting method. You know as well as I do that there is no "instructional time" in walking to or from the bus. State regs prohibit lunch and recess being counted as "instructional time." But those regs do not mention "walking to and from your bus". So since this was time that wasn't specifically prohibited as being "instructional time " --- FCPS said "hey, let's use that to 'build in' snow days #4-13". Technically, the first three snow days are accounted for in the amount of time that your child is actually IN class. But snow days #4-13 are simply made up out of thin air. Meaning -- if there are 4 or more snow days, your child is getting no make up at all. In fact, they are getting gipped out of instruction that in the past FCPS provided to kids. But, people were so distracted by the change of Monday full days and the firm end date at the end of the year, that no one said to the School Board "hey, you are screwing my kids out of their required education that I am paying for and they are entitled (and required) to receive."

It's all fake accounting, my friends.

+1. And LCPS is the same.

The problem is compounded by their desire to keep the Labor Day waiver and the fact that excessive closures for bogus reasons no longer need to be made up. When I was a kid they guarded the closures carefully because anything after 3 had to be made up and nobody wanted that.

Completely agree. There is an incentive to call snow days as much as possible to keep the pre-Labor Day start. On the flip side, you see MCPS and PGCPS pushing kids to school when they could be more cautious b/c they have to give up planned holidays/breaks if they call snow days. That is the wrong incentive as well.