Why doesn't MCPS include more than 1 snow day in the calendar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, one of the makeup days wasn’t used because it was Eid. In fact, none of the makeup days were used. Instead, we went later into June. This makes no sense.

Those days in June were also coded as make-up days

They meant none of the in-year makeup days were used only the useless ones at the end of the year. Also last year had 2 freebies instead of 1 so 4 cancelations this year would possibly mean 3 days instead of 2. So even if March 20 and April 15 are used, they'd have to use June 18.

[Anonymous]

Good question and great responses here. I have been teaching for 25 years. The school calendar was never built around learning in the first place. It grew out of agricultural labor needs, summer camps, and buildings that were once unbearably hot, and over time those constraints hardened into tradition. What has changed, especially in terms of not planning in 3 snow days, are the layers of compliance, political optics, and risk management now piled on top of it. Maryland’s day and hour requirements make calendars highly scrutinized, so a realistic building in of snow days, as they used to do, looks on paper like planning to cancel school and invites criticism, even when everyone knows winter will likely disrupt instruction for 3 or more days. This governs negotiations; every additional snow day must be taken from somewhere, and each option produces predictable conflict. One snow day is tolerable; several become contentious and must come from somewhere, so June absorbs the consequences. But anyone who has taught through late June knows those days are largely symbolic. Grades are done, exams are over, attendance drops, teachers are burned out, and families leave. The June overflow calendar meets its formal requirements, but its practical effects or lack thereof, are familiar to anyone who has worked inside it.

[Anonymous]

Everything the above poster said is true. Especially for HS students, AP's are long done and by adding those days onto June, nothing is accomplished...I hate to say that virutal may be the way to go in the future. I get "let kids have a snow day", but when extended or prolonged, virtual may be the only way to go.

[Anonymous]

Snow days are a great excuse to skip more content and never make up for it. Last June we had two half days to make up for 2-3 full snow days where kids just played around, and yet my ES kid did not cover a whole unit of instruction, ironically US History. And if I go and complain to the principal, room teacher or MCPS that the curriculum is not followed thoroughly, I will be crazy bigot. How do I dare to care for my kids education.

[Anonymous]

I really hope Taylor and the BOE learned something from last year's make up days. Total waste of time.... grades were still due the Friday before and all it was were scavenger hunts and movies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everything the above poster said is true. Especially for HS students, AP's are long done and by adding those days onto June, nothing is accomplished...I hate to say that virutal may be the way to go in the future. I get "let kids have a snow day", but when extended or prolonged, virtual may be the only way to go.

My NY friend says that for this snow storm, the first day was a snow day, and then every student was expected to be online the second day (except for really little kids maybe). They just used the virtual learning set up they have from COVID and kids are expected to have their school laptops at home.

For a school district that is so dependent on Chromebooks, I'm surprised there's been no talk about using them...even if the elementary school younger years don't have them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year, one of the makeup days wasn’t used because it was Eid. In fact, none of the makeup days were used. Instead, we went later into June. This makes no sense.

Those days in June were also coded as make-up days

We should be using the days in the year as they come up instead of tacking on useless half days to the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything the above poster said is true. Especially for HS students, AP's are long done and by adding those days onto June, nothing is accomplished...I hate to say that virutal may be the way to go in the future. I get "let kids have a snow day", but when extended or prolonged, virtual may be the only way to go.

My NY friend says that for this snow storm, the first day was a snow day, and then every student was expected to be online the second day (except for really little kids maybe). They just used the virtual learning set up they have from COVID and kids are expected to have their school laptops at home.

For a school district that is so dependent on Chromebooks, I'm surprised there's been no talk about using them...even if the elementary school younger years don't have them.

They broke the Chromebooks and we don’t have the money to replace them.

Parents argued they were so addictive and dangerous that we shouldn’t use them every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really hope Taylor and the BOE learned something from last year's make up days. Total waste of time.... grades were still due the Friday before and all it was were scavenger hunts and movies.

He's too busy making useless snow day videos. Keep watching it and maybe you'll feel better about your kid not getting the educational days they're entitled to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to have 184 days scheduled, with additional days at the end as snow days. Most years we only used one or two, and everyone wished school ended sooner (hated the 2days the following week pattern.) The couple of times we had huge storms, it was a state emergency and they waived making up extra days beyond the 4.

Then came Hogan and his mandate that schools start after Labor Day and end by 6/15. Some years it barely fit and end of quarter grading became half days, pd became half days. As part of that process they dropped extra days not mandated by law and got creative around where to put makeup days. After the assembly made a law giving start date decisions back to school systems and we were post pandemic, they never went back, partly because climate change has really switched weather patterns and partly because it’s less expensive to not open the buildings unnecessarily.

Hogan and his Eastern shore tourism priorities are long gone. Just start school a week earlier in August. It’s good for kids in AP classes to get that extra week in before May exams.

I agree, but unfortunately I doubt people in this county are willing to tolerate starting a little earlier in August. Did you hear how much people complained about starting one whole day earlier this year than last year? Now imagine if someone told them school had to start on-- *gasp*-- August 20th? The horror!

I don't see any evidence for that. Most parents in MCPS can't take off 9 weeks of holidays from their jobs. Maybe the summer camp lobby complains, and maybe the MCPS teachers complain, but not the parents.

+1. This is not something most parents would complain about. A lot of Virginia already starts earlier than MCPS.

But on a different thread a teacher said “if you want to take away one of my 9 weeks of summer holiday, you better pay me more.” The teachers are better with this fiction that there’s only one snow day a year in MoCo because then there aren’t 180 days of actual teaching time built into the calendar.

I seriously doubt that was a real MCPS teacher. The most we ever get is 8 weeks between our last duty day and the first.

Teachers work more than 180 days, but we have no control over how many of those 180 are available for instruction. This year, we lost a day to transition. My school does testing and state-mandated surveys in a time-inefficient way because we don’t have enough staff for the number of students with extended time and small testing group accommodations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything the above poster said is true. Especially for HS students, AP's are long done and by adding those days onto June, nothing is accomplished...I hate to say that virutal may be the way to go in the future. I get "let kids have a snow day", but when extended or prolonged, virtual may be the only way to go.

My NY friend says that for this snow storm, the first day was a snow day, and then every student was expected to be online the second day (except for really little kids maybe). They just used the virtual learning set up they have from COVID and kids are expected to have their school laptops at home.

For a school district that is so dependent on Chromebooks, I'm surprised there's been no talk about using them...even if the elementary school younger years don't have them.

They broke the Chromebooks and we don’t have the money to replace them.

Parents argued they were so addictive and dangerous that we shouldn’t use them every day.

Funny. My kid and all his classmates have their Chromebooks at home. My kid even broke out IXL today without any in asking him to do so, and worked on math. This is a lot of wasted time that McPS should have planned to use more intelligently like other school districts did. It’s not like this snowstorm was unexpected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We used to have 184 days scheduled, with additional days at the end as snow days. Most years we only used one or two, and everyone wished school ended sooner (hated the 2days the following week pattern.) The couple of times we had huge storms, it was a state emergency and they waived making up extra days beyond the 4.

Then came Hogan and his mandate that schools start after Labor Day and end by 6/15. Some years it barely fit and end of quarter grading became half days, pd became half days. As part of that process they dropped extra days not mandated by law and got creative around where to put makeup days. After the assembly made a law giving start date decisions back to school systems and we were post pandemic, they never went back, partly because climate change has really switched weather patterns and partly because it’s less expensive to not open the buildings unnecessarily.

Hogan and his Eastern shore tourism priorities are long gone. Just start school a week earlier in August. It’s good for kids in AP classes to get that extra week in before May exams.

I agree, but unfortunately I doubt people in this county are willing to tolerate starting a little earlier in August. Did you hear how much people complained about starting one whole day earlier this year than last year? Now imagine if someone told them school had to start on-- *gasp*-- August 20th? The horror!

I don't see any evidence for that. Most parents in MCPS can't take off 9 weeks of holidays from their jobs. Maybe the summer camp lobby complains, and maybe the MCPS teachers complain, but not the parents.

+1. This is not something most parents would complain about. A lot of Virginia already starts earlier than MCPS.

But on a different thread a teacher said “if you want to take away one of my 9 weeks of summer holiday, you better pay me more.” The teachers are better with this fiction that there’s only one snow day a year in MoCo because then there aren’t 180 days of actual teaching time built into the calendar.

I seriously doubt that was a real MCPS teacher. The most we ever get is 8 weeks between our last duty day and the first.

Teachers work more than 180 days, but we have no control over how many of those 180 are available for instruction. This year, we lost a day to transition. My school does testing and state-mandated surveys in a time-inefficient way because we don’t have enough staff for the number of students with extended time and small testing group accommodations.

Who knows, but the person said they were an MCPS teacher. The status quo of no extra snow days means extra days of staying home comfortably and not having to do extra instruction or grading to make up those days.

My kids went to the half days in June tacked on due to the snow days last year, and it was all video watching and kids doing puzzle handouts for fun. Much more like daycare than actual school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything the above poster said is true. Especially for HS students, AP's are long done and by adding those days onto June, nothing is accomplished...I hate to say that virutal may be the way to go in the future. I get "let kids have a snow day", but when extended or prolonged, virtual may be the only way to go.

My NY friend says that for this snow storm, the first day was a snow day, and then every student was expected to be online the second day (except for really little kids maybe). They just used the virtual learning set up they have from COVID and kids are expected to have their school laptops at home.

For a school district that is so dependent on Chromebooks, I'm surprised there's been no talk about using them...even if the elementary school younger years don't have them.

I agree this would be reasonable for MS and HS for big storm events like this. Tacking on days in June is useless.

I get what the PP is saying about changes in optics, politics, etc. but JFC officials really need to put that aside and use some common sense when building the calendar. Other regions have more snow days built in even though when their capacity for dealing with snow is a lot higher and they don't always use them. MCPS really just needs to start earlier and have at least 3 snow days built in with a couple additional potential make-up days that they are actually willing to use. The current approach is not working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Snow days are a great excuse to skip more content and never make up for it. Last June we had two half days to make up for 2-3 full snow days where kids just played around, and yet my ES kid did not cover a whole unit of instruction, ironically US History. And if I go and complain to the principal, room teacher or MCPS that the curriculum is not followed thoroughly, I will be crazy bigot. How do I dare to care for my kids education.

Mcps omitted a few of the ckla domains last year because it was the first year of ckla. They went back and re- added some of the skipped domains this year. They added back the farms unit for K and the Inca/Maya/Aztec unit for first grade. Not sure what was added in for other grades. Doing 12-13 units plus a research unit is a lot.

There's also some spiral review (for example learning about the colonial America in kindergarten, first grade and 3rd grade, and then it's a big social studies unit in 5th)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everything the above poster said is true. Especially for HS students, AP's are long done and by adding those days onto June, nothing is accomplished...I hate to say that virutal may be the way to go in the future. I get "let kids have a snow day", but when extended or prolonged, virtual may be the only way to go.

My NY friend says that for this snow storm, the first day was a snow day, and then every student was expected to be online the second day (except for really little kids maybe). They just used the virtual learning set up they have from COVID and kids are expected to have their school laptops at home.

For a school district that is so dependent on Chromebooks, I'm surprised there's been no talk about using them...even if the elementary school younger years don't have them.

They broke the Chromebooks and we don’t have the money to replace them.

Parents argued they were so addictive and dangerous that we shouldn’t use them every day.

Funny. My kid and all his classmates have their Chromebooks at home. My kid even broke out IXL today without any in asking him to do so, and worked on math. This is a lot of wasted time that McPS should have planned to use more intelligently like other school districts did. It’s not like this snowstorm was unexpected.

Mcps gave elementary schools the option of either doing the cart model which means the Chromebook stay at school or the one-to-one model which means the Chromebooks for the kids. Some teachers who are in one-to-one schools just have the kids keep the Chromebooks at school anyway. Most of the teachers at my school hate the one-to-one model because it just creates a lot more work trying to track down missing Chromebooks. We don't really have a lot of evidence that students are using any of the educational websites at home. I suppose the benefit is that the kids are not really goofing around on Chromebooks at school as much.

In any case , for schools that keep all their products in the cart those schools would have to do a big just Chromebook distribution prior to the storm in order to do virtual learning.