Transition day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just heard that KAH at our school will not be operating on the 25th. Which means no before or aftercare for kindergarteners and no day-off care for older kids. So parents are going to have to take that day off work, I guess? Is MCPS just waiting to announce this until August? Some parents need more time to prepare than that...

You can hire a 10th, 11th or 12th grade neighbor to watch your child.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Isn't this an MCPS-wide thing, not an individual school thing, so shouldn't there be information out from Central Office by now on this? Schools can't decide on their own what times the buses run, can they?

The buses would run at the same times they run on regular school days. That's one of the points of the transition day, to get a practice day for the buses.

Note that wasn’t a point as the buses have always been practicing the routes in the days before school began and the Thursday transition half day also included bus service just like a regular school day.

What Thursday transition half-day? We have definitely never had that before at our elementary school.

Previously the transition day was just for MS and HS. Which made sense because they were entering bigger schools, transition classes throughout the day, maybe walking or getting on the bus alone, etc.

Now they’ve added the K and the 3rd graders at the couple of 3-5 schools. Mostly because they ditched the K orientation day in Spring because it required the current K students to be out of the building, plus well it was a regular school day for everyone else.

Most people I know have no idea why this needed to become a full day and why it needed to move to Monday.

Our school still has K orientation. They hire subs for the kindergarten classes and have the regular teachers run orientation.

The reason they did this is that Taylor liked it from his old school system.

But where is Orientation held if the kindergarten students are in their class? Like is it in the morning in the Cafeteria?

The kids are combined into classes I believe - not ideal, but I am just grateful that they o have school - for my older kids I had to take 3 days off for the orientation! Our aftercare provider didn’t offer care those days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to be a complete mess with kids at our school. We have a ton of non English speaking families who will all come to the bus stop on Monday and then realize they can't get on. Such a dumb idea. And then they didn't do enough communication to everyone before school was out about it.
I will be taking a day off as planned as my kids aren't in the transition grades.

How is that even going to work at the bus stops since kids in older grades who are new to the school can also attend-- you can't really expect bus drivers to enforce who's allowed to get on and who can't, can you?

No, bus drivers won’t be asked to do that. Nor should they take it upon themselves to do so.

The schools that are likely to be impacted are already planning to welcome any students who shows up because the family misunderstood or was not informed.

My school has divided staff into many little teams that will run different transition day activities. My team is one of two that will handle meaningful activities for unexpected students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:K teacher here: transition day is for K, 3rd, 6th, 9th, AND any students who are new to the school. We're planning for at least some students in each grade to show up. It's a full regular day. For K, we're planning to do all the new to school things like touring the school, practicing the lunch line, checking out the bathrooms, going over routines, etc. Our students will also "sample" each of the specials. It's been suggested that if we have time, we might get a jump on beginning of the year baseline assessments.

The move to Monday, I think, is a response to the legitimate concern that having it on Friday would take away one of the much-needed preservice days teachers use to prep their classroom and plan.

The point is that for MS/HS it was already being done as a half day. I’m sure they will like getting that half day back as soon as they understand what is now going to take place all day Monday.

[Anonymous]

I have a kid in a transition year and asked some staffin central office before the end of the school year if they had considered sending a reminder to 5th and 8th graders to be on the lookout for summer comms about the transition day. I was assured that comms would come out in July. I guess they have two more weeks!

[Anonymous]

Why aren't people protesting transition day? It's a full day of school for a lot of students and all staff and it doesn't count as an instructional day.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s a good idea to acclimate new students this way.

The problem is that the communication has been poor and parents plan their summer and back to school schedules months in advance.

[Anonymous]

I like the idea, but just wish it was a half day. No need for the kids to be there for the full day. It will be boring for them and an imposition on staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea, but just wish it was a half day. No need for the kids to be there for the full day. It will be boring for them and an imposition on staff.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s a good idea to acclimate new students this way.

The problem is that the communication has been poor and parents plan their summer and back to school schedules months in advance.

Umm it's the Monday of the week school starts. That part has already been announced. Anyone who hasn't already planned the summer and back to school schedule around that, its on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea, but just wish it was a half day. No need for the kids to be there for the full day. It will be boring for them and an imposition on staff.

+1

So basically you want what existed with the addition of adding ES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea, but just wish it was a half day. No need for the kids to be there for the full day. It will be boring for them and an imposition on staff.

If the staff are getting paid, there is no imposition. They just need to do their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't people protesting transition day? It's a full day of school for a lot of students and all staff and it doesn't count as an instructional day.

It shouldn’t count as an instructional day. Staff gets paid. Most students aren’t there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like the idea, but just wish it was a half day. No need for the kids to be there for the full day. It will be boring for them and an imposition on staff.

+1

So basically you want what existed with the addition of adding ES.

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why aren't people protesting transition day? It's a full day of school for a lot of students and all staff and it doesn't count as an instructional day.

It's not required. If it doesn't work for your kid's schedule, don't send them.