FCPS Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should go back to every Monday being an early release day and reduce the number of random full days they have off.

(We figured out childcare in that era, you can too.)

Seriously? This is such a stupid argument. The half day mondays were a problem for 2 working parents, which there are more of now than there were a decade ago.

Why can't we just have whole days at places in the calendar where they're chunked? two-three day mini breaks instead of one day a week for 6 weeks at a time or whatever nonsense we've had the last couple of years.

DP. No, the early release Mondays were not a problem for 2 working parents or for SAHPs. Aftercare, whether public or private, would cover them. Only WFH parents may have to be flexible, which they can do.

What a privileged remark. Aftercare isn’t free.

Aftercare at SACC is only $200/mo. If you can’t get in, local martial arts places are only $300 to $400/mo.

SACC aftercare is $459/month per kid (for HHI > $132K).

I thought $200 seemed low. We are starting SACC next year. Sigh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IEPs will need to be amended.

This is actually an issue that FCPS has not considered and needs to.

The “enrichment” programs that Reid referenced are generally not available to students with disabilities. The IEP documents are legal contracts and have certain hour requirements. FCPS should know after the OCR settlement that they cannot simply wave a magic wand and get out of their legal obligations under IEPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IEPs will need to be amended.

This is actually an issue that FCPS has not considered and needs to.

The “enrichment” programs that Reid referenced are generally not available to students with disabilities. The IEP documents are legal contracts and have certain hour requirements. FCPS should know after the OCR settlement that they cannot simply wave a magic wand and get out of their legal obligations under IEPs.

FCPS has considered this as part of this plan. Just because you don’t have every detail doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. Principals have brought this up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should go back to every Monday being an early release day and reduce the number of random full days they have off.

(We figured out childcare in that era, you can too.)

Seriously? This is such a stupid argument. The half day mondays were a problem for 2 working parents, which there are more of now than there were a decade ago.

Why can't we just have whole days at places in the calendar where they're chunked? two-three day mini breaks instead of one day a week for 6 weeks at a time or whatever nonsense we've had the last couple of years.

DP. No, the early release Mondays were not a problem for 2 working parents or for SAHPs. Aftercare, whether public or private, would cover them. Only WFH parents may have to be flexible, which they can do.

What a privileged remark. Aftercare isn’t free.

Aftercare at SACC is only $200/mo. If you can’t get in, local martial arts places are only $300 to $400/mo.

You are delusional - my oldest started SACC 5 years ago and even then it was over $400/month and martial arts places were $600. I'm sure it's much more now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. If students need to stay at school on those days, they can. There will be supervision at school. Parents can choose to have them go home at the early release time or later (at normal dismissal) with double
bus runs. Reid mentioned this in the email (vaguely).

Teacher also. Won’t this just cause more problems with subs. It was intended that families with childcare issues can stay but now anyone can stay and then what? Whole classes need people watching them with no teaching going on? I just don’t see how this is supposed to work.

The steering committee is also working on bringing in other groups to the school during those times, in addition to SACC: YMCA, scouts, tutors, being running enrichment clubs; and remember, not every staff member is attending this training.

in other words, specialists who have planning on Monday afternoons will be screwed. Not only will they lose their usual planning, but they will also get to spend extra time planning activities/lessons/babysitting for students they may not usually see. I think it makes much more sense to block the days together. Maybe even at the start of the year. Provide camp for those who need care and start school 4 days later. Teachers who need the reading training can have it to start the year. Other teachers can participate in meaningful PD (rarely happens for specialists). Monday short days were ok when they were every Monday as our schedule was made around it. Having random days means that those specialists who have Monday classes will now miss them on holidays and will either miss them or have much shorter classes on early Mondays. I would not want to be the person who had to keep track of who is staying and who is going home!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the teachers are going to learn to teach reading over 7 different days scattered throughout the year? What about the kids that need to learn to read this year? The teacher will have only finished the training when the year is nearly over.

Really curious about your background and why this is so hard for you to understand.

Just a mom wondering why teachers need so much more ongoing training than other professions. I imagine if you are a new teacher it would be helpful but after a few years, sitting through all that training year after year might get a bit tedious.

I mean, I'm a project manager and I"m required to take 20 hours/training a year just to maintain my PMP certification. I'm also required to take at least 20 more hours of other random required training. Plus, I try to take a week of training on something that sounds interesting to me.

[Anonymous]

In LOL at the mom who thinks teachers, of all professions, have no reason to stay on top of new research and methods, learn the new curriculum and standards the states roll out every few years, etc.

[Anonymous]

what you don't seem to grasp is that these reading trainings can not be done in one week. The state rolls them out once a month. So even if you wanted to, they aren't available. Honestly, this isn't FCPS trying to screw you over. This comes from the state. Take it up with Glen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In LOL at the mom who thinks teachers, of all professions, have no reason to stay on top of new research and methods, learn the new curriculum and standards the states roll out every few years, etc.

In reality, it does end up being every year. For example, when the math standards change, it takes 2 years. The crossover year and then the 2nd year with full implementation. Then those two years occur with language arts, social studies, and with history. It’s been eight years in the math curriculum changing again. This is mainly an elementary problem. For middle school and high school, when their standards change, it only really affects them 2 out of 8 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In LOL at the mom who thinks teachers, of all professions, have no reason to stay on top of new research and methods, learn the new curriculum and standards the states roll out every few years, etc.

In reality, it does end up being every year. For example, when the math standards change, it takes 2 years. The crossover year and then the 2nd year with full implementation. Then those two years occur with language arts, social studies, and with history. It’s been eight years in the math curriculum changing again. This is mainly an elementary problem. For middle school and high school, when their standards change, it only really affects them 2 out of 8 years.

And she thinks we “learned it all in teacher college 20 years ago.” Nothing I did even 5 years ago pre-covid works anymore let alone what I learned in “teacher college.” What a clown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:what you don't seem to grasp is that these reading trainings can not be done in one week. The state rolls them out once a month. So even if you wanted to, they aren't available. Honestly, this isn't FCPS trying to screw you over. This comes from the state. Take it up with Glen.

1000% sure these trainings don’t even exist yet and the state is furiously putting them together as we speak because they just mandated that we have to do them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In LOL at the mom who thinks teachers, of all professions, have no reason to stay on top of new research and methods, learn the new curriculum and standards the states roll out every few years, etc.

In reality, it does end up being every year. For example, when the math standards change, it takes 2 years. The crossover year and then the 2nd year with full implementation. Then those two years occur with language arts, social studies, and with history. It’s been eight years in the math curriculum changing again. This is mainly an elementary problem. For middle school and high school, when their standards change, it only really affects them 2 out of 8 years.

And she thinks we “learned it all in teacher college 20 years ago.” Nothing I did even 5 years ago pre-covid works anymore let alone what I learned in “teacher college.” What a clown.

Sometimes on this board, parents post why can’t you just use the same material every year?. Well, not only has the state change the standards but then the county introduces new initiatives, new programs, etc. I would personally love to use the same material every year. It would save me so much time..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what you don't seem to grasp is that these reading trainings can not be done in one week. The state rolls them out once a month. So even if you wanted to, they aren't available. Honestly, this isn't FCPS trying to screw you over. This comes from the state. Take it up with Glen.

1000% sure these trainings don’t even exist yet and the state is furiously putting them together as we speak because they just mandated that we have to do them.

+1 they are constructing them now. They will suck and not be any better than reading a manual somewhere. The least they could do is get LETRS or a proven training. They won’t, they will have crappy slides with bad videos and ‘presenters’ who won’t answer any real questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In LOL at the mom who thinks teachers, of all professions, have no reason to stay on top of new research and methods, learn the new curriculum and standards the states roll out every few years, etc.

In reality, it does end up being every year. For example, when the math standards change, it takes 2 years. The crossover year and then the 2nd year with full implementation. Then those two years occur with language arts, social studies, and with history. It’s been eight years in the math curriculum changing again. This is mainly an elementary problem. For middle school and high school, when their standards change, it only really affects them 2 out of 8 years.

And she thinks we “learned it all in teacher college 20 years ago.” Nothing I did even 5 years ago pre-covid works anymore let alone what I learned in “teacher college.” What a clown.

Sometimes on this board, parents post why can’t you just use the same material every year?. Well, not only has the state change the standards but then the county introduces new initiatives, new programs, etc. I would personally love to use the same material every year. It would save me so much time..

True true. The EOC SOL for 11 is changing to the IRW format and now we all have to adapt to that- nothing used from past years works anymore. And that’s in addition to the new English Standards of Learning we have to implement this year, and the 32 hours of additional literacy training. But we should just reuse everything year to year, we already learned it in teacher college!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will this fully eliminate the instances where classes have a standing sub one day a week for training/ meetings (which has been happening in my kiddos classrooms the last few years already)? Or is this lost learning time/ more routine juggling for the kiddos in addition to all that....?

Nope, this is completely different. These early release days are essentially for the reading trainings.

Yes. The state just mandated 32 ADDITIONAL hours of reading training on top of all the other stuff we have to do.

The state should pay for that instead of taking it out of existing instructional time. Way to go Glenn Youngkin - screwing teachers and students!

Aren't teachers supposed to learn this stuff in teacher college? Why do they need nearly a full week of training every year?

My degrees are in American Literature (B.A.), Psychology (B.S.), and Curriculum (M.Ed.). I am licensed to teach English, grades 6-12.`I was trained in reading comprehension, written expression, and vocabulary acquisition, not in basic literacy, such as how to teach students to read or to evaluate types of phonemes.

Because I currently teach in a middle school, I am required to complete the trainings on basic reading instruction, for the VLA was extended to include up through grade 8. Additionally, I have students every year who are 4-7 grade levels behind in reading, as well as students who experience significant difficulty with English spelling because they never learned spelling patterns. I don't have the training necessary to help these students because I am not trained in basic reading.