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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Add 15 minutes to each school day. That's 45 additional hours of school per year (equivalent to about 6 additional days of school). <drops mic.... walk away....>

This thread feels like 22 pages of arguments on whose holidays should be represented. But, if the real question is how do we not lose the 184 days worth of learning then this idea makes some sense. Add 2 minutes to each class period and 1 minute to lunch. It's good to hear a solution brought forward instead of just a bunch of endless complaining.

+1

Would never happen, though. The buses! The after-school programs! They'd come up with some reason it wouldn't work.

This would be great - but still wouldn't solve the 180 DAY issue - its not about hours of instruction - state law mandates 180 DAYS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you please show me that an extra week, or even two, of summer vacation causes a substantially greater loss?

So far, no one has.

Seems like that would have been a great thing to study BEFORE issuing the Ocean City edict.

Why? Why is there any reason to think 11 weeks would cause harm when 10 weeks is acceptable?

+1. There are 4-6 primary studies that are typically linked to in the footnotes of articles talking about summer slide. All of them summarize the issue being 10 weeks of learning loss that require approximately 1-2 months to recover. None of them show any research into showing that 11 weeks or worse than 10 weeks or would require more teaching time to relearn lost material. The summer slide is a phenomenon that needs to be addressed, but as yet, there is no evidence that one extra week of summer would cause any signficant change in the summer slide or its solution.

It may be telling to see the standardized test scores from MD schools this fall and compare to the same schools form last year and see whether there is any test-based evidence that there is a significant different between the 2016 10-week summer gap vs the 2017 11-week summer gap.

[Anonymous]

It's 11.8 weeks. Not 11 weeks. The summer will be almost 2 full weeks longer. It's not one week longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's 11.8 weeks. Not 11 weeks. The summer will be almost 2 full weeks longer. It's not one week longer.

This year because there were so few snow days used last year. On average, the school year is 3 days longer than last year, due to snow days. The average difference is 6 days, not 9 days. Nonetheless, there is still no documented evidence that 10 weeks vs 12 weeks is significant or takes longer to recover from. If it takes the same amount of time to recover the lost knowledge from summer slide after 12 weeks vs 10 weeks, why is it so important to counter the schedule change?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Jewish holidays should be the first to go. If it means that much then pull your kids.
Next should be winter break - only need to have Christmas and New Years off. If you want more days pull your kids
Might as well do away with President's Day as well, soon enough that day will go the way of Columbus Day.

Then you need to change state law, which requires schools to close between December 24 and January 1.

Love how the teachers union lobbied for that.

And here we are. Teachers union paid federal and national and professional holidays versus religious holidays.

Are you an idiot? Those days off are not paid. Teachers get paid based on the number of "working days," whether nonworking days intercede.

Now I'm confused. [b]what days off during non-summer months are not paid for teachers? I assumed all days off during the school year are paid[i]. I also agree with the various PP's this has deliberately gotten political and parties are trying to make trouble with religious groups to fight Hogan over the school calendar puzzle. Yet professional days and Columbus/Martin Luther/President's days are not on the table.

You assumed incorrectly. Teachers are paid for 195 work days. This year there are 182 instructional days which is why preservice week was extended to 8 days. There are two professional days this year--January 26th and June 13th. Then for the additional 3 days of payment teachers have to document 24 hours of time spent working outside the duty day, but the documented work has to be related to the School Improvement Plan. One of those 3 days can be used for planning within the school day (either two half days or one full day) but teachers must get a sub and write sub plans. That brings them to 195 paid days. No holidays or other days off are paid.

I love how on this board when someone refutes commonly held assumptions with actual facts that there are crickets. I guess it just doesn't fit peoples' strongly held assumptions that teachers have many paid days off and that they're just greedy/lazy and sit around eating catered lunches during professional days. Interesting.

Do you need a sticker for all your lengthy posts about your teacher union terms?
I expect any employee anywhere to get their job done and get it done well, and if it needs after hours or weekend work, so be it. No way does that imply I am taking a vacation day during the school week because a teacher refuses to "plan" outside of his/her teacher union edict hours and dates.

I'm the poster you were responding to and I am a new poster to this thread and am not a teacher. I have subbed in schools and have seen the crazy amount of work teachers have that I wasn't aware of until I started spending time in schools as more than just a parent. I thought the same way you did until I experienced it as a long term sub. It was much more work than I had in my previous corporate job, which was pretty high stress itself. And you don't need to take a vacation day during the school week. There are plenty of other options. But clearly you'd rather be hostile than think outside the box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's 11.8 weeks. Not 11 weeks. The summer will be almost 2 full weeks longer. It's not one week longer.

This year because there were so few snow days used last year. On average, the school year is 3 days longer than last year, due to snow days. The average difference is 6 days, not 9 days. Nonetheless, there is still no documented evidence that 10 weeks vs 12 weeks is significant or takes longer to recover from. If it takes the same amount of time to recover the lost knowledge from summer slide after 12 weeks vs 10 weeks, why is it so important to counter the schedule change?

It would be much better for kids if the summer was significantly shorter, say 6 weeks. But since we can't have 6 weeks, it would be better to have 10
weeks instead of 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's 11.8 weeks. Not 11 weeks. The summer will be almost 2 full weeks longer. It's not one week longer.

This year because there were so few snow days used last year. On average, the school year is 3 days longer than last year, due to snow days. The average difference is 6 days, not 9 days. Nonetheless, there is still no documented evidence that 10 weeks vs 12 weeks is significant or takes longer to recover from. If it takes the same amount of time to recover the lost knowledge from summer slide after 12 weeks vs 10 weeks, why is it so important to counter the schedule change?

Shouldn't count on a contingency plan...it's not even clear which says they would use. There are also contingency days buoy in (like during spread this year).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Jewish holidays should be the first to go. If it means that much then pull your kids.
Next should be winter break - only need to have Christmas and New Years off. If you want more days pull your kids
Might as well do away with President's Day as well, soon enough that day will go the way of Columbus Day.

Then you need to change state law, which requires schools to close between December 24 and January 1.

Love how the teachers union lobbied for that.

And here we are. Teachers union paid federal and national and professional holidays versus religious holidays.

Are you an idiot? Those days off are not paid. Teachers get paid based on the number of "working days," whether nonworking days intercede.

Now I'm confused. [b]what days off during non-summer months are not paid for teachers? I assumed all days off during the school year are paid[i]. I also agree with the various PP's this has deliberately gotten political and parties are trying to make trouble with religious groups to fight Hogan over the school calendar puzzle. Yet professional days and Columbus/Martin Luther/President's days are not on the table.

You assumed incorrectly. Teachers are paid for 195 work days. This year there are 182 instructional days which is why preservice week was extended to 8 days. There are two professional days this year--January 26th and June 13th. Then for the additional 3 days of payment teachers have to document 24 hours of time spent working outside the duty day, but the documented work has to be related to the School Improvement Plan. One of those 3 days can be used for planning within the school day (either two half days or one full day) but teachers must get a sub and write sub plans. That brings them to 195 paid days. No holidays or other days off are paid.

I love how on this board when someone refutes commonly held assumptions with actual facts that there are crickets. I guess it just doesn't fit peoples' strongly held assumptions that teachers have many paid days off and that they're just greedy/lazy and sit around eating catered lunches during professional days. Interesting.

It's because you are so full of it that nobody wants to get near your posts. Anyone can go out and read your contract. http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/associationrelations/refresh2014/MCEA%20Contract%20FY15-FY17%20.pdf. Here's one highlight:


.

Yup. Read the contract. Those "holidays" are unpaid days off for teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can you please show me that an extra week, or even two, of summer vacation causes a substantially greater loss?

So far, no one has.

Seems like that would have been a great thing to study BEFORE issuing the Ocean City edict.

Why? Why is there any reason to think 11 weeks would cause harm when 10 weeks is acceptable?

10 weeks is already too long. 11 weeks is even longer. 12 weeks is even longer than that. It's a reasonable assumption that a longer time out of school causes a greater amount of summer slide. But hey, there's a rational way to address this issue.

Step 1: Assess whether there is more summer slide with 11 weeks or 12 weeks than 10 weeks.
Step 2: If there is, continue to allow local school boards the authority to set their own start and end dates. If there isn't, consider setting state-wide school start and end dates for the benefit of the Ocean City tourist economy.

Instead, this is what Governor Hogan did:

Step 1: Set state-wide school start and end dates for the benefit of the Ocean City tourist economy.
Step 2: Assert, without study, that there is no evidence of harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS should ask for a waiver for Presodemts Day and MLK day and Easter Monday. Those three days could then be used for other purposes such as professional days or a guaranteed spring break.

MCPS should ask for a waiver for MLK Day, President's Day, Good Friday, and Easter Monday. Then we'll wait and see how the governor responds.

Has the board considered this? Seems more likely to be successful than the June 22 end date.

MCPS will not ask for a waver for any of those days because they would have to pay supporting services holiday pay. Other districts, including Howard County, are doing just this, but MCPS won't consider it because it would cost them extra money. They did make up a day on Easter Monday a couple of years ago and they were very upset about paying the holiday pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS should ask for a waiver for Presodemts Day and MLK day and Easter Monday. Those three days could then be used for other purposes such as professional days or a guaranteed spring break.

MCPS should ask for a waiver for MLK Day, President's Day, Good Friday, and Easter Monday. Then we'll wait and see how the governor responds.

Has the board considered this? Seems more likely to be successful than the June 22 end date.

MCPS will not ask for a waver for any of those days because they would have to pay supporting services holiday pay. Other districts, including Howard County, are doing just this, but MCPS won't consider it because it would cost them extra money. They did make up a day on Easter Monday a couple of years ago and they were very upset about paying the holiday pay.

It's understandable that MCPS does not want to have to take money away from something else, to pay supporting services holiday pay, just so that they can fit their calendar into the governor's decree to benefit the Ocean City economy.

[Anonymous]

There is holiday pay for Presidents Day? That is ridiculous. It's not like making someone work on a holiday that they would otherwise be celebrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is holiday pay for Presidents Day? That is ridiculous. It's not like making someone work on a holiday that they would otherwise be celebrating.

What I think is ridiculous, personally, is all of the posters on DCUM talking about the simple solutions that the BoE could immediately implement, without knowing anything about the actual facts involved.

[Anonymous]

Yes, all of those days require holiday pay for supporting service workers. I think MCPS should negotiate with that union so that we could petition to go to school on those days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is holiday pay for Presidents Day? That is ridiculous. It's not like making someone work on a holiday that they would otherwise be celebrating.

What I think is ridiculous, personally, is all of the posters on DCUM talking about the simple solutions that the BoE could immediately implement, without knowing anything about the actual facts involved.

There are no simple solutions. But I was surprised that there is holiday pay for a holiday that no one actually celebrates.