How to fit school days into Gov Larry Hogan's ridiculous policy on school start and stop dates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

Next up is Chinese New Year

According to http://www.bestplaces.net/religion/county/maryland/montgomery, there are as many Muslims as those of “eastern faith” in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

Those holidays meld into Spring Break, why would we not look at the minority religious holidays that sporadically interrupt the school week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

Those holidays meld into Spring Break, why would we not look at the minority religious holidays that sporadically interrupt the school week?

They meld into spring break BECAUSE THE BOARD OF EDUCATION DESIGNS SPRING BREAK AROUND THEM. (Capital letters for emphasis.) There is no inherent reason why spring break has to be the week before or the week after Easter.

[Anonymous]

Start with voting HOGan out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

I am sure p(PP) meant Hindus and Muslims.

There are Indian Hindus, Indian Muslims, Indian Christians, Indian Sikhs, Indian Jews, Indian Buddhists, Indian Jains, Indian Zoroastrians, Indian Baha'is, Indian Atheists.
(Just like you have Americans who are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Baha'is, Rastafarians, Wiccans, Daoist, Falun Gong etc...)

How do Indian schools handle this level of religious diversity? Well, the school week in India is from Monday-Saturday usually, the summer break is only a month long, and the school year is dotted with holidays for most of the major festivals for major religions. Long breaks during the academic year is few and far between but they are built in around major festival seasons to an extent. On an average, an Indian student in India gets an average of two whole years of extra schooling compared to American students by the time they graduate from high school. Imagine what an advantage it is for students to get an additional 700 days of instruction from K-12. No wonder US is falling behind.

I would prefer if the schools give a week's break between the first three quarters, and only a month long summer break. Having a break of a week between quarters actually allows students to catch up if they are academically falling behind. I am indifferent to if religious holidays are celebrated or not. I do feel that the Christmas break is a nice break for most people and shopping is great.

- Indian-American Hindu.

[Anonymous]

We should not get sidelined discussing religious holidays during the academic year. Our attention should be on the shrinking of the academic year and available instructional days.
It should not be viewed from the point of just reducing the achievement gap, since all students are shortchanged when the instructional days are reduced.

As a working parent, I dread the half days, professional days, holidays that seems to keep popping up all the time. There is a whole lot of no-school days throughout the year and then an enormously long summer break. We should also have extra days built in for extreme weather that will now become a more frequent occurrence. This means being prepared for snow days, summer storms, tornadoes, derechos, cloudbursts etc. I really do not care if Hindu festivals do not get a holiday. I would like an acknowledgement of these holidays, religions, beliefs built into a World Studies curriculum but I don't think that celebrating all festivals of all religions in the US with school holidays is useful.

- Indian-American Hindu.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On an average, an Indian student in India gets an average of two whole years of extra schooling compared to American students by the time they graduate from high school. Imagine what an advantage it is for students to get an additional 700 days of instruction from K-12. No wonder US is falling behind.

(On average, an Indian student in India doesn't complete secondary school.)

[Anonymous]

I would be greatly surprised if Hogan loses his bid for re-election. I'm already getting emails from friends for Maladeno fundraisers, *yawn*. I don't care about his agenda points, his message is weak. He is following the path blazed by Hillary Clinton of having a message that misses the mark for the majority of voters.

I certainly don't agree with everything that Hogan has done, but the actions of the MoCo BOE affect my children's education directly. For years we've been sitting by helplessly wondering who could step in to corral this out of control BOE.

It's not a difficult decision. Keep spring break, and take out the extra minority religious holidays. Solid weeks are much better for a child's education, which is actually the purpose of school. I think it is financially difficult for poor central American immigrants to plan and pay for three additional days of whole day childcare for holidays they don't celebrate anyway.

Montgomery County BOE will more than likely cut the spring break that the majority of parents would like to keep and try to blame Hogan. It's the BOE's choice in how to implement the governor's reasonable order so the backlash will fall on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We should not get sidelined discussing religious holidays during the academic year. Our attention should be on the shrinking of the academic year and available instructional days.
It should not be viewed from the point of just reducing the achievement gap, since all students are shortchanged when the instructional days are reduced.

As a working parent, I dread the half days, professional days, holidays that seems to keep popping up all the time. There is a whole lot of no-school days throughout the year and then an enormously long summer break. We should also have extra days built in for extreme weather that will now become a more frequent occurrence. This means being prepared for snow days, summer storms, tornadoes, derechos, cloudbursts etc. I really do not care if Hindu festivals do not get a holiday. I would like an acknowledgement of these holidays, religions, beliefs built into a World Studies curriculum but I don't think that celebrating all festivals of all religions in the US with school holidays is useful.

- Indian-American Hindu.

Thank you!

I would like to point out one thing in your statement. You can not disregard the achievement gas as an argument. Montgomery County BOE has announced this as their highest priority from the hiring of the superintendent to how they rate their schools. I agree it is best for ALL students, but BOE only really focusses on the minorities, not on the majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be greatly surprised if Hogan loses his bid for re-election. I'm already getting emails from friends for Maladeno fundraisers, *yawn*. I don't care about his agenda points, his message is weak. He is following the path blazed by Hillary Clinton of having a message that misses the mark for the majority of voters.

I certainly don't agree with everything that Hogan has done, but the actions of the MoCo BOE affect my children's education directly. For years we've been sitting by helplessly wondering who could step in to corral this out of control BOE.

It's not a difficult decision. Keep spring break, and take out the extra minority religious holidays. Solid weeks are much better for a child's education, which is actually the purpose of school. I think it is financially difficult for poor central American immigrants to plan and pay for three additional days of whole day childcare for holidays they don't celebrate anyway.

Montgomery County BOE will more than likely cut the spring break that the majority of parents would like to keep and try to blame Hogan. It's the BOE's choice in how to implement the governor's reasonable order so the backlash will fall on them.

You can. Run for a seat on the Board of Education. That's the most direct and effective action. Relying on executive orders from the governor is, at best, a blunt instrument. If you've been sitting by and wondering, instead of getting involved and acting, that's on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you!

I would like to point out one thing in your statement. You can not disregard the achievement gas as an argument. Montgomery County BOE has announced this as their highest priority from the hiring of the superintendent to how they rate their schools. I agree it is best for ALL students, but BOE only really focusses on the minorities, not on the majority.

Indian-American students and Hindu students are minorities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be greatly surprised if Hogan loses his bid for re-election. I'm already getting emails from friends for Maladeno fundraisers, *yawn*. I don't care about his agenda points, his message is weak. He is following the path blazed by Hillary Clinton of having a message that misses the mark for the majority of voters.

I certainly don't agree with everything that Hogan has done, but the actions of the MoCo BOE affect my children's education directly. For years we've been sitting by helplessly wondering who could step in to corral this out of control BOE.

It's not a difficult decision. Keep spring break, and take out the extra minority religious holidays. Solid weeks are much better for a child's education, which is actually the purpose of school. I think it is financially difficult for poor central American immigrants to plan and pay for three additional days of whole day childcare for holidays they don't celebrate anyway.

Montgomery County BOE will more than likely cut the spring break that the majority of parents would like to keep and try to blame Hogan. It's the BOE's choice in how to implement the governor's reasonable order so the backlash will fall on them.

I work in a school with a large population of central American immigrants who receive FARMS. They don't pay for childcare on the days off from school. The parents typically have a network of neighbors willing to pitch in and help each other out. There are frequently also grandparents or other extended family members living in the home or nearby who help take care of the kids. They also don't need to attend before or aftercare for this reason. It's really not as big of a deal as you think it is.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the pp who said that we should remove religious holidays including the friday before/monday after Easter. Spring break extends more than a week, which is unnecessary. Select the dates for Spring Break that make the most sense academically, and they may or may not coincide with Easter. And certainly not more than 5 school days off in Spring Break.

I actually wonder if it would be better to ADD the Wednesday before Thanksgiving-- it seems like there are so many absences that day that teachers don't plan rigorous days there in any case.

I don't have an opinion as to whether single days off that dot the calendar hurt student learning. I'd imagine it depends on level. I personally really like the fact that the kids have several breaks as they ease into Fall semester, but there must be some research in the Education field on impact on learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should not get sidelined discussing religious holidays during the academic year. Our attention should be on the shrinking of the academic year and available instructional days.
It should not be viewed from the point of just reducing the achievement gap, since all students are shortchanged when the instructional days are reduced.

As a working parent, I dread the half days, professional days, holidays that seems to keep popping up all the time. There is a whole lot of no-school days throughout the year and then an enormously long summer break. We should also have extra days built in for extreme weather that will now become a more frequent occurrence. This means being prepared for snow days, summer storms, tornadoes, derechos, cloudbursts etc. I really do not care if Hindu festivals do not get a holiday. I would like an acknowledgement of these holidays, religions, beliefs built into a World Studies curriculum but I don't think that celebrating all festivals of all religions in the US with school holidays is useful.

- Indian-American Hindu.

Not to muddy the waters, but as a factual matter, the district is composed
Of pluralities these days, not majority vs. minority.
Is composed of pluralities now, not majority vs minority. And for those saying achievement gap issues affect only a minority of the district - I don't

Thank you!

I would like to point out one thing in your statement. You can not disregard the achievement gas as an argument. Montgomery County BOE has announced this as their highest priority from the hiring of the superintendent to how they rate their schools. I agree it is best for ALL students, but BOE only really focusses on the minorities, not on the majority.