Ugh....time to wake my 8th grader up

[Anonymous]

I am with you, mama. Luckily we live a mile away from school so I took pity on my 7th grader and decided to drive him for the next 2 years.

[Anonymous]

Just wait until HS sports get fully started. Coaches and players have maybe ten minutes after school ends to get practice started. Likely the HS students will come home from practices later, start homework later, stay up later and...still lack sleep and shortchange themselves.

Also, traffic patterns are drastically altered. It should not take my HS student 25 minutes to drive 1.5 miles.

[Anonymous]

Why are the bus rides so long? I am in Loudoun (which goes, ES 7:50, MS 8:30, HS 9:05 - or something close to that.) and my 2nd grader catches the bus at 7:28. We all get up at 6:50. It's NBD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD will be sleep deprived for the entire school year. You can not make a MS student go to bed at 9:00. Just won't happen.

Bed time for everyone should be 7 pm. Why am I still awake ugh

[Anonymous]

Yayyyyy, SLEEP was finally able to force thousands of middle school kids to get even less sleep at a cost $5 million.

What a victory.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yayyyyy, SLEEP was finally able to force thousands of middle school kids to get even less sleep at a cost $5 million.

What a victory.

Why did it cost $5 million? And why didn't they just do it like Loudoun (and tons of other counties) and reverse everyone? In Loudoun there is no before care because school drop off begins at 7:30. It works really well and the elem kids don't mind (too much.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yayyyyy, SLEEP was finally able to force thousands of middle school kids to get even less sleep at a cost $5 million.

What a victory.

Why did it cost $5 million? And why didn't they just do it like Loudoun (and tons of other counties) and reverse everyone? In Loudoun there is no before care because school drop off begins at 7:30. It works really well and the elem kids don't mind (too much.)

Comb back through the many threads on this topic last year. There was a highly publicized debate and poll done by the school committee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right there with you. Our busses come two hours apart for MS and ES. This stinks.

And you wouldn't make a stink with a 90 minute difference? Really?

It is just 30 minutes. Plus, it is only 2 years instead of the four when they are on HS.

Agreed. Depending on how old your kids are any bus schedule can be inconvenient. When my youngest was in elementary, second child in middle school and 3rd in high school, a few years back, we had to catch buses at 6:30, 7:15 and 8:50. It made for extremely long mornings. I know the changes are inconvenient for some, but middle school is only blip. I can't tell you how different it was having two leaving for high school today at 7:30, vs. getting up at 5:30 to make a 6:30 bus.

+100
My DS actually had a coherent conversation with me, a full breakfast, and a smile on his face when he left for his 7:15 bus! (As opposed to last year's 6:15 bus - horrible).

[Anonymous]

I'm loving the later high school start times, but they really do need to make the middle schools start later too. All of these kids are teens and could all benefit from a later start.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm loving the later high school start times, but they really do need to make the middle schools start later too. All of these kids are teens and could all benefit from a later start.

Not enough buses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm loving the later high school start times, but they really do need to make the middle schools start later too. All of these kids are teens and could all benefit from a later start.

Not enough buses.

How does Loudoun do it? I also have friends in Henrico County in Richmond and DeKalb County in Atlanta where the school start times are reversed and there are no bus issues. These are all large, well regarded education systems. Why can't FCPS figure it out?

[Anonymous]

I hate getting my 8th grader up at 6.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The middle school I teach at went from 8 to 7:30. Buses began dropping kids off in our parking lot at 7 am this morning. Staff was asked to be in the building by 6:45 so as not to be blocking buses as they entered.

It's going to be a long year.

The worst part for teachers (imo) is that after school buses still don't come until 4:30, so now staff is expected to stay after to tutor kids from 2:15-4:30 once a week. That is a LONG (unpaid) period of tutoring for kids who have likely been up since 5:30.

As a Fairfax County taxpayer I have to ask, why the hell is this unpaid? That is some bullshit that has to stop.

First - the principal cannot require that you show up at 645 unless he's willing to let you walk out the door at 215 which is unlikely since that's right when the kids are dismissed. Your contract hours are for 7.5/day with the occasional after school faculty meeting. A 645 arrival time would be a contract violation. You can voluntarily come in that early (a ton of teachers do) but that's about it.

Second - you're not expected to stay until 430. The general expectation at a couple of FCPS schools I taught at was one hour a week of unpaid time after school. If you're staying over two hours unpaid, you're a sucker. Put in one hour, once a week and go home.

Correct. He is not requiring us to be there at 6:45. Our contract hours are 7:10-2:40. HOWEVER...the parking lot is tiny, and the buses begin arriving at 7. If you get there at 7, you will wait 10+ minutes to park your car. The only way to actually be in the building by 7:10 is to get into the building before 7 am.

For the second point though, yes, we are expected to stay until 4:30. It's a low income school, where 200-300 kids stay after school any given late bus day because they really have nowhere better to go. If the teachers left at 3:15 as you are suggesting, there would be 100s of completely unsupervised 13 year olds doing who knows what in the building. Or in the vicinity of the building. It is not possible for the after school coordinator to monitor that many kids on their own, so the only way it's possible is if the staff all take turns staying throughout the week. Thankfully I work at a school where the staff really and truly care about what these kids are involved in and staff work hard to give the kids good options. My guess is it will become an hour of academic help followed by an hour of some sort of "club" each teacher runs. Knitting club, soccer club, video game club, whatever.

It worked great for the past few years where it was 90 minutes (3-4:30) and the kids didn't have to wake up until 7, but now that they're up before 6 to catch buses and not leaving until 4:30...they're going to be at school for 9 hours, and away from their houses for at least 10. Most of these kids don't have electives because they're double blocked in math and reading remediation. That makes for some very long days for our struggling kiddos.

I hate that all the decisions are made around buses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The middle school I teach at went from 8 to 7:30. Buses began dropping kids off in our parking lot at 7 am this morning. Staff was asked to be in the building by 6:45 so as not to be blocking buses as they entered.

It's going to be a long year.

The worst part for teachers (imo) is that after school buses still don't come until 4:30, so now staff is expected to stay after to tutor kids from 2:15-4:30 once a week. That is a LONG (unpaid) period of tutoring for kids who have likely been up since 5:30.

As a Fairfax County taxpayer I have to ask, why the hell is this unpaid? That is some bullshit that has to stop.

First - the principal cannot require that you show up at 645 unless he's willing to let you walk out the door at 215 which is unlikely since that's right when the kids are dismissed. Your contract hours are for 7.5/day with the occasional after school faculty meeting. A 645 arrival time would be a contract violation. You can voluntarily come in that early (a ton of teachers do) but that's about it.

Second - you're not expected to stay until 430. The general expectation at a couple of FCPS schools I taught at was one hour a week of unpaid time after school. If you're staying over two hours unpaid, you're a sucker. Put in one hour, once a week and go home.

Correct. He is not requiring us to be there at 6:45. Our contract hours are 7:10-2:40. HOWEVER...the parking lot is tiny, and the buses begin arriving at 7. If you get there at 7, you will wait 10+ minutes to park your car. The only way to actually be in the building by 7:10 is to get into the building before 7 am.

For the second point though, yes, we are expected to stay until 4:30. It's a low income school, where 200-300 kids stay after school any given late bus day because they really have nowhere better to go. If the teachers left at 3:15 as you are suggesting, there would be 100s of completely unsupervised 13 year olds doing who knows what in the building. Or in the vicinity of the building. It is not possible for the after school coordinator to monitor that many kids on their own, so the only way it's possible is if the staff all take turns staying throughout the week. Thankfully I work at a school where the staff really and truly care about what these kids are involved in and staff work hard to give the kids good options. My guess is it will become an hour of academic help followed by an hour of some sort of "club" each teacher runs. Knitting club, soccer club, video game club, whatever.

It worked great for the past few years where it was 90 minutes (3-4:30) and the kids didn't have to wake up until 7, but now that they're up before 6 to catch buses and not leaving until 4:30...they're going to be at school for 9 hours, and away from their houses for at least 10. Most of these kids don't have electives because they're double blocked in math and reading remediation. That makes for some very long days for our struggling kiddos.

I hate that all the decisions are made around buses

I totally agree but you sound like a really caring teacher. Good for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The middle school I teach at went from 8 to 7:30. Buses began dropping kids off in our parking lot at 7 am this morning. Staff was asked to be in the building by 6:45 so as not to be blocking buses as they entered.

It's going to be a long year.

The worst part for teachers (imo) is that after school buses still don't come until 4:30, so now staff is expected to stay after to tutor kids from 2:15-4:30 once a week. That is a LONG (unpaid) period of tutoring for kids who have likely been up since 5:30.

As a Fairfax County taxpayer I have to ask, why the hell is this unpaid? That is some bullshit that has to stop.

First - the principal cannot require that you show up at 645 unless he's willing to let you walk out the door at 215 which is unlikely since that's right when the kids are dismissed. Your contract hours are for 7.5/day with the occasional after school faculty meeting. A 645 arrival time would be a contract violation. You can voluntarily come in that early (a ton of teachers do) but that's about it.

Second - you're not expected to stay until 430. The general expectation at a couple of FCPS schools I taught at was one hour a week of unpaid time after school. If you're staying over two hours unpaid, you're a sucker. Put in one hour, once a week and go home.

Correct. He is not requiring us to be there at 6:45. Our contract hours are 7:10-2:40. HOWEVER...the parking lot is tiny, and the buses begin arriving at 7. If you get there at 7, you will wait 10+ minutes to park your car. The only way to actually be in the building by 7:10 is to get into the building before 7 am.

For the second point though, yes, we are expected to stay until 4:30. It's a low income school, where 200-300 kids stay after school any given late bus day because they really have nowhere better to go. If the teachers left at 3:15 as you are suggesting, there would be 100s of completely unsupervised 13 year olds doing who knows what in the building. Or in the vicinity of the building. It is not possible for the after school coordinator to monitor that many kids on their own, so the only way it's possible is if the staff all take turns staying throughout the week. Thankfully I work at a school where the staff really and truly care about what these kids are involved in and staff work hard to give the kids good options. My guess is it will become an hour of academic help followed by an hour of some sort of "club" each teacher runs. Knitting club, soccer club, video game club, whatever.

It worked great for the past few years where it was 90 minutes (3-4:30) and the kids didn't have to wake up until 7, but now that they're up before 6 to catch buses and not leaving until 4:30...they're going to be at school for 9 hours, and away from their houses for at least 10. Most of these kids don't have electives because they're double blocked in math and reading remediation. That makes for some very long days for our struggling kiddos.

I hate that all the decisions are made around buses

I agree with the PP. it's a 7.5 hour day. Actually, even an extra hour of required time once a week seems like a lot. If members of the staff want to volunteer their time, then that's great. Most of us are in the building for longer, but it's shouldn't be a requirement. Leaving on time doesn't mean you don't care.