Ferebee email re adding school days because of snow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

I think it would be unfair to take away the wellness day if that’s what it is designated as. Teachers might have already planned trips or family events. However I’m confused by the wellness day in general as it doesn’t seem to work well here. Why not add a day to Thanksgiving or some other holiday.

But it would be in lieu of extending their school year by a day. They don’t have kids on the extra day. If you polled teachers at my school on wellness day vs reporting on that Monday, they would 100% sacrifice the wellness day. Also, lots of them were planning 4 day weekends and holding PTCs at alternate times and those plans are screwed up too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is acceptable at all. My kids get “excellent” report cards (elementary) but it really tells me nothing. Since we don’t have any major issues we receive zero individual communication from the school and don’t have any chance to ask questions or speak to the teacher. The only time is during the 2 x a year conferences. What school system thinks it’s acceptable to do cancel parent teacher conferences like this?

And didn’t the kids only miss two days of school and trudge through the snow with all those late start times so there wouldn’t be snow make up days?

Why are you looking for issues if there don't seem to be any issues? DC parents, I swear. Try to find a hobby or something...or I don't know, get a life?

Laura Fuchs, is that you?

You are the same person in the last thread. I know who you are, this is really sad and pathetic -even for you.

LF and teachers in general did not have ANY say in this. This was a surprise, I mean usually they announce much later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

I think it would be unfair to take away the wellness day if that’s what it is designated as. Teachers might have already planned trips or family events. However I’m confused by the wellness day in general as it doesn’t seem to work well here. Why not add a day to Thanksgiving or some other holiday.

But it would be in lieu of extending their school year by a day. They don’t have kids on the extra day. If you polled teachers at my school on wellness day vs reporting on that Monday, they would 100% sacrifice the wellness day. Also, lots of them were planning 4 day weekends and holding PTCs at alternate times and those plans are screwed up too.

No, we would not. You cannot possibly know very teacher’s feelings at your school.
I personally don’t care. I’m just annoyed they thought PTC didn’t mean anything and could’ve cancelled.

But no, I am not giving up my wellness day. Burnout in DCPS is real, you have no clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they followed the original snow day plan the last day of school would be a Monday. Now we all know the “open schools and walk through the snow like they do in Siberia” crowd will be there because every day is important. But we know everyone else would skip Monday because it’s the last day and a waste or summer camps will have started. So they decided to use conference day instead, a day most students are likely to attend. Really DCPS bet on not needing two snow days when they made the original calendar. I wonder if the mayor considered the third snow day would be a Monday last day and decided to open school before they really should have.

My kids went to school on the two-hour delay days because my spouse and I have to work to provide for our family. My kids won't attend the last days of school because I already had to plan out childcare/vacation for the entire summer and finding childcare for partial weeks is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

Nope, we would not have. Most are upset about no PTC day.
We would have been fine to give up a PD day. But that is in our contract too.

Some of you seem to think our opinions even matter. They do not when it comes to this. You also must not realize that if we gave up our wellness day DCPS would use this opportunity to take things from us illegally (like they have done).

You can look up the PERB ruling that states they have not been bargaining with teachers in good faith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is acceptable at all. My kids get “excellent” report cards (elementary) but it really tells me nothing. Since we don’t have any major issues we receive zero individual communication from the school and don’t have any chance to ask questions or speak to the teacher. The only time is during the 2 x a year conferences. What school system thinks it’s acceptable to do cancel parent teacher conferences like this?

And didn’t the kids only miss two days of school and trudge through the snow with all those late start times so there wouldn’t be snow make up days?

Why are you looking for issues if there don't seem to be any issues? DC parents, I swear. Try to find a hobby or something...or I don't know, get a life?

Laura Fuchs, is that you?

You are the same person in the last thread. I know who you are, this is really sad and pathetic -even for you.

LF and teachers in general did not have ANY say in this. This was a surprise, I mean usually they announce much later.

Actually I was the person in the last thread. There's definitely more than one person who doesn't like her.

I do believe teachers had no say here though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d like to hear what the teacher union has to say about this. Agree it is going to suck for teachers too.

I don’t think there’s an expectation to hold conferences. If parents reach out a teacher might schedule one if they are able, but it’s not a mandate to meet with all families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

I think it would be unfair to take away the wellness day if that’s what it is designated as. Teachers might have already planned trips or family events. However I’m confused by the wellness day in general as it doesn’t seem to work well here. Why not add a day to Thanksgiving or some other holiday.

But it would be in lieu of extending their school year by a day. They don’t have kids on the extra day. If you polled teachers at my school on wellness day vs reporting on that Monday, they would 100% sacrifice the wellness day. Also, lots of them were planning 4 day weekends and holding PTCs at alternate times and those plans are screwed up too.

I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t gone on the last teacher work day in years because my school doesn’t do anything that day. We turn in our check out list the last student day and we are done. So I definitely wouldn’t vote to lose our wellness day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

I think it would be unfair to take away the wellness day if that’s what it is designated as. Teachers might have already planned trips or family events. However I’m confused by the wellness day in general as it doesn’t seem to work well here. Why not add a day to Thanksgiving or some other holiday.

But it would be in lieu of extending their school year by a day. They don’t have kids on the extra day. If you polled teachers at my school on wellness day vs reporting on that Monday, they would 100% sacrifice the wellness day. Also, lots of them were planning 4 day weekends and holding PTCs at alternate times and those plans are screwed up too.

Alternate times?

[Anonymous]

As a teacher, I would be totally open to have a 15 minute phone conference with any parent who reached out to me and said “hey, I was looking forward to meeting with you during conferences to learn more about my student’s progress, is there a time we can talk/can you share via email more about these skills we have been working on?”

If you are a parent who thinks that canceling conferences means you just won’t get any updates about your kid, I would encourage you to be polite and proactive. Teachers have professional expectations to communicate with parents and personally I like when parents send me an open-ended check in email. It sometimes takes a couple of days for me to compile a response, but I’ll make sure to include examples and work samples. My guess is that some individual schools might ask all teachers to get confirmed contact with all families in their preferred method in the month of March.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

I think it would be unfair to take away the wellness day if that’s what it is designated as. Teachers might have already planned trips or family events. However I’m confused by the wellness day in general as it doesn’t seem to work well here. Why not add a day to Thanksgiving or some other holiday.

But it would be in lieu of extending their school year by a day. They don’t have kids on the extra day. If you polled teachers at my school on wellness day vs reporting on that Monday, they would 100% sacrifice the wellness day. Also, lots of them were planning 4 day weekends and holding PTCs at alternate times and those plans are screwed up too.

Alternate times?

Yes, alternate times. Our teachers are allowed to take PTC day off if they accommodate all PTCs at other times/days. Lots of teachers therefore offer 2-3 weeks of morning and afternoon times and were planning on a 4 day weekend. Works for me, better times anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is acceptable at all. My kids get “excellent” report cards (elementary) but it really tells me nothing. Since we don’t have any major issues we receive zero individual communication from the school and don’t have any chance to ask questions or speak to the teacher. The only time is during the 2 x a year conferences. What school system thinks it’s acceptable to do cancel parent teacher conferences like this?

And didn’t the kids only miss two days of school and trudge through the snow with all those late start times so there wouldn’t be snow make up days?

Why are you looking for issues if there don't seem to be any issues? DC parents, I swear. Try to find a hobby or something...or I don't know, get a life?

Laura Fuchs, is that you?

You are the same person in the last thread. I know who you are, this is really sad and pathetic -even for you.

LF and teachers in general did not have ANY say in this. This was a surprise, I mean usually they announce much later.

I'm really not, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

I think it would be unfair to take away the wellness day if that’s what it is designated as. Teachers might have already planned trips or family events. However I’m confused by the wellness day in general as it doesn’t seem to work well here. Why not add a day to Thanksgiving or some other holiday.

But it would be in lieu of extending their school year by a day. They don’t have kids on the extra day. If you polled teachers at my school on wellness day vs reporting on that Monday, they would 100% sacrifice the wellness day. Also, lots of them were planning 4 day weekends and holding PTCs at alternate times and those plans are screwed up too.

Alternate times?

Yes, alternate times. Our teachers are allowed to take PTC day off if they accommodate all PTCs at other times/days. Lots of teachers therefore offer 2-3 weeks of morning and afternoon times and were planning on a 4 day weekend. Works for me, better times anyway.

Some teachers do that. I can’t. So what alternative times from 8-3:30 are you recommending?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a teacher, I would be totally open to have a 15 minute phone conference with any parent who reached out to me and said “hey, I was looking forward to meeting with you during conferences to learn more about my student’s progress, is there a time we can talk/can you share via email more about these skills we have been working on?”

If you are a parent who thinks that canceling conferences means you just won’t get any updates about your kid, I would encourage you to be polite and proactive. Teachers have professional expectations to communicate with parents and personally I like when parents send me an open-ended check in email. It sometimes takes a couple of days for me to compile a response, but I’ll make sure to include examples and work samples. My guess is that some individual schools might ask all teachers to get confirmed contact with all families in their preferred method in the month of March.

Thank you for posting that. It's a reasonable response, and I appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Love that they kept the Wellness Day, but scrapped PTCs. (Eyeroll....) Way to keep accountability to an absolute minimum, DC teachers' union.

Can't wait until my DC heads to her older siblings' charter...

For the record, they didn’t ask the Union about this. If they had, I can assure you teachers would have either given up that wellness day or kept PTC. We now have to report to work on June 22nd….

I think you're wrong - the union would not have given up wellness day

I absolutely believe WTU would have given up a wellness day to avoid reporting on the 22nd. I don’t believe they would have given it up for PTCs.

No they would not. The most vocal teachers in the union never want to give up any days off. They also wanted school closed for a week after the snow storm. No way WTU gives up the wellness day.

Nope, we would not have. Most are upset about no PTC day.
We would have been fine to give up a PD day. But that is in our contract too.

Some of you seem to think our opinions even matter. They do not when it comes to this. You also must not realize that if we gave up our wellness day DCPS would use this opportunity to take things from us illegally (like they have done).

You can look up the PERB ruling that states they have not been bargaining with teachers in good faith.

Wait this news came out today and you know “most teachers” are upset about cancelling PTC day? How is that possible? The teachers I know aren’t upset. But I’m not going to claim that’s most. You speak in terms of “we” quite freely.