Will DCPS ignore snow days again in June?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone looked at how all the Virginia districts that close 10+ days a year sometimes do it without making up a single day?

No but I would be curious to know the answer to this. Do they extend the school day?

That's what we used to do where I grew up. I lived in an area that always got lots of snow and would periodically get a huge storm that would shut things down for a week or more. Once I missed two weeks of school because we got like 10 ft of snow over two days and they deemed the schools unsafe until snow could be cleared from the roofs. They would just add time to the school day every day for the rest of the year. We also had some built in snow days but they usually weren't all bundled at the end of the year. There would be professional development days scheduled near breaks so they could make up a snow day in January or March if necessary.

I'm guessing extending the school day would be a no go in DC for some reason. People freak out about everything here. But when we did it, it was no big deal. I think it was fairly easy for teachers to plan for -- usually it would just get scheduled in as solo work with tutoring time. So kids would do assigned reading, homework, etc. on their own while teachers circulated to provide 1:1 help to kids who needed it. This reduced homework time at home and resulted in extra 1:1 instruction for kids who were most in need of it. Win-win. I'm sure if this was proposed in DC people would have some kind of epic meltdown for some reason though. I don't understand the weird combativeness around education in this city. It is abnormal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OSSE has extremely lax rules about what counts as a school day. It allows schools to claim they are in session for 180 days when any normal person tallying up the days would not come anywhere close to 180 days. It's really scandalous.

Can't even count on DC schools to meet the legal minimum standard.

Fun fact: There is this thing called google. You can google "dcps calendar" and then the calendar magically appears. So you can look at the calendar and see the two snow days built in making the last day June 23rd. It's pretty amazing. Look at the calendar. Count the number of days of school and you will see 180 days!!! The legal requirement!!!

But gosh, June 23rd is a Monday. Womp womp. Cue in the parents complaining about the vacation they already booked. Take out the Kleenex for the parents who had already signed up for summer camp. I hope central office and principals have cleared out their inboxes for all the sad and angwee emails they are about to get. Lonely tear.

But wait! Maybe we make up our snow days on the PD days! Oh, again, I hope principals and central office clear out their inboxes because families booked a three day trip for that made up day! It's the cheapest time of year to fly to Utah. So angwee. So sad. Boo hoo.

Good job completely missing the point. Of course, every school claims to be meeting the 180 day requirement. No one says they are ignoring the law. But if you count up the actual days in session, many of these schools are nowhere close to 180.

Many of these schools? Is Mann different from Seaton? didn't think so.We are talking about DCPS- not charter. "Will DCPS ignore snow days again in June"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is a really serious issue that no one pays attention to. our charter school doesnt come anywhere close to 180 days and no one cares. parents aren't paying attention and osse lets schools ignore the law.

They are just waiting until someone sues. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet by a family with a special needs child.

I dont think parents realize their schools are doing it. They just assume the school is following the rules.

This but there is also a contingent of parents who don't care and actually are happy when there is less school.

This group is larger when there is a debate over something like adding days to the school year for snow days. I remember tons of parents last year lobbying against the snow days because they had vacation plans right after school got out or "whatever it's not like kids learn anything the last week" or just not wanting to deal with school commutes for a couple more days. It's remarkable how many people just don't value education at all and view school as little more than a babysitting service or an annoying obligation. Depressing.

Some might say that adding more days at the end of the school year is a babysitting service, too. You are clinging on to the extra days for what? Stop acting like this is unique to DCPS or modern education. Everyone knows the month of June is a joke. You think you were reading an anthology and having socratic seminars in the 3rd grade on June 15th in the 80's? Stop acting like it's some kind of inequity and just say you need babysitting.

Everyone does not know that. It's a defeatist attitude people adopt to justify not making any effort.

I personally think we should switch to year round school with seasonal breaks to avoid this BS.

Is it though? Do you know how many year long parents complain about burning through their PTO? No camps, no programming? And the really rich just get to go on two week vacations every 6-8 weeks.

The system isn't perfect. No system is. It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. I am sure DCPS will add on the extra days and the parents who already have plans will rage and continue with their life plans. And you will get to send your child to school so they don't miss out on their socratic seminar.

If we switched to year round school there would be camps and programming during the seasonal breaks. Just like right now there are camps and programming in the summer. It would actually be easier to provide coverage. It's often hard to find camps in mid-August around here because a lot of them shut down by the 1st week of August. If we did shorter seasonal breaks instead of a long summer, it might actually be easier to have coverage because you'd only have to find 1-2 week coverage at a time instead of trying to find 8-10 weeks of childcare every summer.

I assure you, you would find ways to complain about the nontraditional calendar. I taught in a school that had a nontraditional calendar in California and it was great. Great for a teacher. I loved all the breaks. But there were no camps or programming during the 2-3 weeks off. And you do realize that the non traditional calendar is also just 180 days? Except you don't get to benefit from ANY of the summer camps. Outdoor camps, sleepway camps. None of it.

This. Unless there is a federal change it's going to suck for everyone but maybe teachers with no kids or kids in the school. If DC alone moves to year round all the Maryland camps and probably some of the DC camps that serve private school kids and kids in Maryland and Virginia are going to stay as they are and DC parents are going to be out of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OSSE has extremely lax rules about what counts as a school day. It allows schools to claim they are in session for 180 days when any normal person tallying up the days would not come anywhere close to 180 days. It's really scandalous.

Can't even count on DC schools to meet the legal minimum standard.

What is the legal minimum standard? So far no one has posted the complete legal requirement. Or the process for a waiver which is also posted.

I mean you also have access to the internet so I don't know why you are sitting around waiting for someone else to just provide you with all the relevant information instead of getting it yourself, but I'm used to working with lazy people so here: https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/Instructional%20Day%20Guidance_May2022_0.pdf

The waiver process is extremely loose and basically allows OSSE to waive the requirement any time a school says it has "exigent circumstances." You would think exigent circumstances would be defined to described totally unforeseen issues, but it doesn't. So I guess exigent circumstances could include "we built two snow days into the calendar in the case of snow, and then we had snow, but we just don't feel like extending the school year by two days, so we won't." If that meets the test than virtually anything would. "The kids seem restive, we don't want to deal with them anymore." "We are tired." "I don't know, how important is school really? Seems superfluous."

It's even worse than that, believe it or not. OSSE says schools can have a four day school week so long as the kids are in the building doing anything at all for at least six hours on those four days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our school had a week off for Thanksgiving, and then less than a month later, two weeks of at Christmas. Why???

They had aftercare coverage for an asynchronous learning day, but then no effort to get the kids on computers to do the assigned work.

You should jump into your Time Machine and take your complaint to Pope Gregory XIII. Oh, and to the current Pope himself. Let him know that the Christian calendar we use is wrong. Nobody needs Christmas. While we are at it, call Trump and tell him to remove Thanksgiving. It's getting in the way of your TPS reporting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is a really serious issue that no one pays attention to. our charter school doesnt come anywhere close to 180 days and no one cares. parents aren't paying attention and osse lets schools ignore the law.

They are just waiting until someone sues. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet by a family with a special needs child.

I dont think parents realize their schools are doing it. They just assume the school is following the rules.

This but there is also a contingent of parents who don't care and actually are happy when there is less school.

This group is larger when there is a debate over something like adding days to the school year for snow days. I remember tons of parents last year lobbying against the snow days because they had vacation plans right after school got out or "whatever it's not like kids learn anything the last week" or just not wanting to deal with school commutes for a couple more days. It's remarkable how many people just don't value education at all and view school as little more than a babysitting service or an annoying obligation. Depressing.

Some might say that adding more days at the end of the school year is a babysitting service, too. You are clinging on to the extra days for what? Stop acting like this is unique to DCPS or modern education. Everyone knows the month of June is a joke. You think you were reading an anthology and having socratic seminars in the 3rd grade on June 15th in the 80's? Stop acting like it's some kind of inequity and just say you need babysitting.

Everyone does not know that. It's a defeatist attitude people adopt to justify not making any effort.

I personally think we should switch to year round school with seasonal breaks to avoid this BS.

Is it though? Do you know how many year long parents complain about burning through their PTO? No camps, no programming? And the really rich just get to go on two week vacations every 6-8 weeks.

The system isn't perfect. No system is. It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. I am sure DCPS will add on the extra days and the parents who already have plans will rage and continue with their life plans. And you will get to send your child to school so they don't miss out on their socratic seminar.

If we switched to year round school there would be camps and programming during the seasonal breaks. Just like right now there are camps and programming in the summer. It would actually be easier to provide coverage. It's often hard to find camps in mid-August around here because a lot of them shut down by the 1st week of August. If we did shorter seasonal breaks instead of a long summer, it might actually be easier to have coverage because you'd only have to find 1-2 week coverage at a time instead of trying to find 8-10 weeks of childcare every summer.

I assure you, you would find ways to complain about the nontraditional calendar. I taught in a school that had a nontraditional calendar in California and it was great. Great for a teacher. I loved all the breaks. But there were no camps or programming during the 2-3 weeks off. And you do realize that the non traditional calendar is also just 180 days? Except you don't get to benefit from ANY of the summer camps. Outdoor camps, sleepway camps. None of it.

The suggestion for year round school was made to counter the argument that "June is worthless." So the idea is that even if the school year was the same number of days, it would be more productive if kids had regular longer breaks but a shorter summer break, resulting in fewer "worthless" days of school. Also the biggest argument in favor of year round school has always been that it reduces learning loss over the summer and results in better educated kids because they are learning on a continuous basis and don't have this huge gap every year and then have to spend the first month or two of school just reviewing content from the previous year.

Also, we are talking about DCPS here and there are tons of camps in DC to cover shorter breaks during the year. Some offered by DCPS and some offered by private companies. Our school has a spring break camp every year for families who don't travel and need childcare -- there are always plenty of spots available. Also the school year is loaded with random days off for professional development, end of term, grading, etc. There are lots of day camps that crop off for these days so I'm sure the same would be true for longer breaks. As a parent, I'd much rather have to find a weeklong camp four times a year than have to figure out childcare for one long summer AND for a bunch of random days during the year. Year round school would enable us to consolidate all those breaks into four midsize breaks that families could split between travel/family time and camps for kids.

The nearing of any ending or break is a waste of time. You could have it once a year or 12 times a year. It's human nature. In schools, the anticipation of a break means...assessments. Why teach new material after an assessment and a few days before a three week break? You think year round schools don't have celebrations? Anknowledge holidays? Go on field trips? All the things you deem as a "waste of time" and probably not worthy of what makes schooling whole? Unless you work in medicine or on Wall Street, time and work production slows down in anticipation of holidays.

Also, there is whole economy built on summer travel and summer camps. This isn't a stubborn teacher union thing.

Wow this is all over the place.

First off, no one has alleged that celebrations or field trips are a waste of time. I think those are great things to do in the day leading up to a break. Kids do get restless on those days and it's super smart to schedule assemblies, outdoor days, field trips, etc. to help kids deal with the restlessness while still doing something educational. And those things are educational.

I think the things people are referring to as a waste of time are when schools just plant kids in front of screens and ply them with candy and treats for the last weeks of school. These activities are not educational and actually make that restlessness way worse. It's a lazy approach that only increases behavioral issues. Schools that do this should be held accountable for it. Kids are restless -- okay, how do we teach to restless kids, what can we do to help kids figure out how to deal with restlessness and learn to handle a transition like this? Not "kids are restless so I give up and stop caring -- here watch the Garfield movie and eat the classroom supply of Doritos and Fruit by the Foot with abandon."

Anyway, lots of school districts around the world do year round school and there are lots of reasons it's considered better. Kids actually do not get as restless because you don't have a solid 9 months of build up before a really long break. There is less burn out because people have been taking breaks all along, including the teachers. There is less learning loss so classrooms spend less time on review. And so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OSSE has extremely lax rules about what counts as a school day. It allows schools to claim they are in session for 180 days when any normal person tallying up the days would not come anywhere close to 180 days. It's really scandalous.

Can't even count on DC schools to meet the legal minimum standard.

What is the legal minimum standard? So far no one has posted the complete legal requirement. Or the process for a waiver which is also posted.

I mean you also have access to the internet so I don't know why you are sitting around waiting for someone else to just provide you with all the relevant information instead of getting it yourself, but I'm used to working with lazy people so here: https://osse.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/osse/page_content/attachments/Instructional%20Day%20Guidance_May2022_0.pdf

The waiver process is extremely loose and basically allows OSSE to waive the requirement any time a school says it has "exigent circumstances." You would think exigent circumstances would be defined to described totally unforeseen issues, but it doesn't. So I guess exigent circumstances could include "we built two snow days into the calendar in the case of snow, and then we had snow, but we just don't feel like extending the school year by two days, so we won't." If that meets the test than virtually anything would. "The kids seem restive, we don't want to deal with them anymore." "We are tired." "I don't know, how important is school really? Seems superfluous."

It's even worse than that. OSSE's rules allow schools to have four day school weeks so long as the kids are in the building for six hours on the four days. Some schools are starting to take advantage. There's a bunch of charters with four day weeks now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school had a week off for Thanksgiving, and then less than a month later, two weeks of at Christmas. Why???

They had aftercare coverage for an asynchronous learning day, but then no effort to get the kids on computers to do the assigned work.

You should jump into your Time Machine and take your complaint to Pope Gregory XIII. Oh, and to the current Pope himself. Let him know that the Christian calendar we use is wrong. Nobody needs Christmas. While we are at it, call Trump and tell him to remove Thanksgiving. It's getting in the way of your TPS reporting.

Did you have a stroke while writing this word salad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our school had a week off for Thanksgiving, and then less than a month later, two weeks of at Christmas. Why???

They had aftercare coverage for an asynchronous learning day, but then no effort to get the kids on computers to do the assigned work.

You should jump into your Time Machine and take your complaint to Pope Gregory XIII. Oh, and to the current Pope himself. Let him know that the Christian calendar we use is wrong. Nobody needs Christmas. While we are at it, call Trump and tell him to remove Thanksgiving. It's getting in the way of your TPS reporting.

Did you have a stroke while writing this word salad?

No, but have you recovered from your stroke because we had two snow days?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this is a really serious issue that no one pays attention to. our charter school doesnt come anywhere close to 180 days and no one cares. parents aren't paying attention and osse lets schools ignore the law.

They are just waiting until someone sues. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet by a family with a special needs child.

I dont think parents realize their schools are doing it. They just assume the school is following the rules.

This but there is also a contingent of parents who don't care and actually are happy when there is less school.

This group is larger when there is a debate over something like adding days to the school year for snow days. I remember tons of parents last year lobbying against the snow days because they had vacation plans right after school got out or "whatever it's not like kids learn anything the last week" or just not wanting to deal with school commutes for a couple more days. It's remarkable how many people just don't value education at all and view school as little more than a babysitting service or an annoying obligation. Depressing.

Some might say that adding more days at the end of the school year is a babysitting service, too. You are clinging on to the extra days for what? Stop acting like this is unique to DCPS or modern education. Everyone knows the month of June is a joke. You think you were reading an anthology and having socratic seminars in the 3rd grade on June 15th in the 80's? Stop acting like it's some kind of inequity and just say you need babysitting.

Everyone does not know that. It's a defeatist attitude people adopt to justify not making any effort.

I personally think we should switch to year round school with seasonal breaks to avoid this BS.

Is it though? Do you know how many year long parents complain about burning through their PTO? No camps, no programming? And the really rich just get to go on two week vacations every 6-8 weeks.

The system isn't perfect. No system is. It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. I am sure DCPS will add on the extra days and the parents who already have plans will rage and continue with their life plans. And you will get to send your child to school so they don't miss out on their socratic seminar.

If we switched to year round school there would be camps and programming during the seasonal breaks. Just like right now there are camps and programming in the summer. It would actually be easier to provide coverage. It's often hard to find camps in mid-August around here because a lot of them shut down by the 1st week of August. If we did shorter seasonal breaks instead of a long summer, it might actually be easier to have coverage because you'd only have to find 1-2 week coverage at a time instead of trying to find 8-10 weeks of childcare every summer.

I assure you, you would find ways to complain about the nontraditional calendar. I taught in a school that had a nontraditional calendar in California and it was great. Great for a teacher. I loved all the breaks. But there were no camps or programming during the 2-3 weeks off. And you do realize that the non traditional calendar is also just 180 days? Except you don't get to benefit from ANY of the summer camps. Outdoor camps, sleepway camps. None of it.

The suggestion for year round school was made to counter the argument that "June is worthless." So the idea is that even if the school year was the same number of days, it would be more productive if kids had regular longer breaks but a shorter summer break, resulting in fewer "worthless" days of school. Also the biggest argument in favor of year round school has always been that it reduces learning loss over the summer and results in better educated kids because they are learning on a continuous basis and don't have this huge gap every year and then have to spend the first month or two of school just reviewing content from the previous year.

Also, we are talking about DCPS here and there are tons of camps in DC to cover shorter breaks during the year. Some offered by DCPS and some offered by private companies. Our school has a spring break camp every year for families who don't travel and need childcare -- there are always plenty of spots available. Also the school year is loaded with random days off for professional development, end of term, grading, etc. There are lots of day camps that crop off for these days so I'm sure the same would be true for longer breaks. As a parent, I'd much rather have to find a weeklong camp four times a year than have to figure out childcare for one long summer AND for a bunch of random days during the year. Year round school would enable us to consolidate all those breaks into four midsize breaks that families could split between travel/family time and camps for kids.

The nearing of any ending or break is a waste of time. You could have it once a year or 12 times a year. It's human nature. In schools, the anticipation of a break means...assessments. Why teach new material after an assessment and a few days before a three week break? You think year round schools don't have celebrations? Anknowledge holidays? Go on field trips? All the things you deem as a "waste of time" and probably not worthy of what makes schooling whole? Unless you work in medicine or on Wall Street, time and work production slows down in anticipation of holidays.

Also, there is whole economy built on summer travel and summer camps. This isn't a stubborn teacher union thing.

Wow this is all over the place.

First off, no one has alleged that celebrations or field trips are a waste of time. I think those are great things to do in the day leading up to a break. Kids do get restless on those days and it's super smart to schedule assemblies, outdoor days, field trips, etc. to help kids deal with the restlessness while still doing something educational. And those things are educational.

I think the things people are referring to as a waste of time are when schools just plant kids in front of screens and ply them with candy and treats for the last weeks of school. These activities are not educational and actually make that restlessness way worse. It's a lazy approach that only increases behavioral issues. Schools that do this should be held accountable for it. Kids are restless -- okay, how do we teach to restless kids, what can we do to help kids figure out how to deal with restlessness and learn to handle a transition like this? Not "kids are restless so I give up and stop caring -- here watch the Garfield movie and eat the classroom supply of Doritos and Fruit by the Foot with abandon."

Anyway, lots of school districts around the world do year round school and there are lots of reasons it's considered better. Kids actually do not get as restless because you don't have a solid 9 months of build up before a really long break. There is less burn out because people have been taking breaks all along, including the teachers. There is less learning loss so classrooms spend less time on review. And so on.

Wow, this is all over the place.
"plant kids in front of screens and ply them with candy and treats for the last WEEKS of school". That doesn't exist. No one does that. My own children go to a very mediocre DCPS and they didn't spend their final weeks watching movies.

The rest of your saying are cherry picked generalizations. You did a google search, you read some obscure study and selected the tiny tid bits that support your rational. You get a gold star! Now, please get off DCUM and go back to "work". Your kids will be fine eating dorirots and watching Garfield at home.

[Anonymous]

For those so indignant about DC "shirking its legal responsibilities," let's remember that the 180 days thing is a federal mandate while school funding is local.

Also, do you seriously think adding a day in mid-June is going to meaningfully impact your child's life? Or is this just about your convenience?

And for all of you weirdly wishing for year-round school (again, is this about your kid or you?), who do you think staffs camps? A lot of the staff is high school and college kids on break.

Sure DC can offer some Spring Break camps, but that works because so many people don't use them. There is not a full complement of camp counselors sitting around waiting to staff a random two or three week break in October or February.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those so indignant about DC "shirking its legal responsibilities," let's remember that the 180 days thing is a federal mandate while school funding is local.

Also, do you seriously think adding a day in mid-June is going to meaningfully impact your child's life? Or is this just about your convenience?

And for all of you weirdly wishing for year-round school (again, is this about your kid or you?), who do you think staffs camps? A lot of the staff is high school and college kids on break.

Sure DC can offer some Spring Break camps, but that works because so many people don't use them. There is not a full complement of camp counselors sitting around waiting to staff a random two or three week break in October or February.

You're right, we should never discuss changing anything about DCPS because it works perfectly as is. Test scores are up, truancy is down, high schools are adequately preparing kids for college, there isn't a crisis of kids who can't read or write. I don't understand why anyone ever complains -- truly and educational utopia.

Wait.

[Anonymous]

A fun fact is that there is no legal federal minimum number of school days required. 180 is the most popular number but only four mandate more, six mandate less (including CO at 160) and 12 which has no minimum and leave it up to each district. It's easy to think this is a DC problem when in reality it's a federal issue.

For a number of reasons this country really hates education and is often actively hostile to it. I'm certainly not expecting that to change with an administration that wants to abolish DoE, and it doesn't absolve the DC mayor's office who put itself in charge of not doing better for its students. It's just to say that that this board is unlikely to be representative of the importance of education to most families in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those so indignant about DC "shirking its legal responsibilities," let's remember that the 180 days thing is a federal mandate while school funding is local.

Also, do you seriously think adding a day in mid-June is going to meaningfully impact your child's life? Or is this just about your convenience?

And for all of you weirdly wishing for year-round school (again, is this about your kid or you?), who do you think staffs camps? A lot of the staff is high school and college kids on break.

Sure DC can offer some Spring Break camps, but that works because so many people don't use them. There is not a full complement of camp counselors sitting around waiting to staff a random two or three week break in October or February.

Or we could just have more school days during the year, before June. Also, schools are funded by a combination of local and federal funding. (That's where that whole "Department of Education" thing comes in).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those so indignant about DC "shirking its legal responsibilities," let's remember that the 180 days thing is a federal mandate while school funding is local.

Also, do you seriously think adding a day in mid-June is going to meaningfully impact your child's life? Or is this just about your convenience?

And for all of you weirdly wishing for year-round school (again, is this about your kid or you?), who do you think staffs camps? A lot of the staff is high school and college kids on break.

Sure DC can offer some Spring Break camps, but that works because so many people don't use them. There is not a full complement of camp counselors sitting around waiting to staff a random two or three week break in October or February.

You're right, we should never discuss changing anything about DCPS because it works perfectly as is. Test scores are up, truancy is down, high schools are adequately preparing kids for college, there isn't a crisis of kids who can't read or write. I don't understand why anyone ever complains -- truly and educational utopia.

Wait.

Kids in Mississippi outscore DC kids on standardized tests, despite Mississippi spending a fraction as much on schools, teacher salaries, etc.