May/June attendance now optional?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This year reminds me of the calendar about 15 years ago. I was teaching 8th grade in FCPS. We had SIX full weeks of school after the SOLS. We had to cram most of the last quarter of material into just a few weeks so that kids knew the material for the SOL. Fortunately, my team was on board to do a bunch of projects that kept kids engaged, but it would have been very easy to not go that route.
The whole thing was nuts and it's one of the reasons that FCPS switched to starting before labor day. However, with so many additional holidays and teacher workdays starting before labor day no longer seems to mean an earlier end to the school year.

At the ES level we never finish last quarter material before the SOL tests, at least not IME. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

I know at one school the teachers grades are due Friday at noon. I can’t imagine any new graded assignments happening after Wednesday, if then.

[Anonymous]

I try so hard to keep teaching right now in high school. I teach a fun class. Students at my school just don’t want to do anything. Once AP exams started, they’ve just refused to engage. Seniors know they can’t fail anymore so they don’t bother to do any work. Most just skip school. I’ll keep teaching the wall, I guess.

[Anonymous]

My son is finishing up projects this week and has finals this week and next (everyday until Tuesday). Why don’t your kids have finals?!?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is finishing up projects this week and has finals this week and next (everyday until Tuesday). Why don’t your kids have finals?!?!

Elementary school or they’re at a school where grades are due early (Friday). Lots of reasons.

[Anonymous]

School has been a joke for a month now. No ‘instruction’, no new lessons, just fluff projects to fill the time and now movies galore, Super heroes, Disney, Judge Judy, Sound of Music, etc. We are racing out the door for 7am drop off yet it’s just to be on time for the movies in first period! Come on, FcPS!

[Anonymous]

Last day of school for my kids was May 22, and they did work until the 20th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a direct result of the ridiculous school calendar.

School should have been over last week. Continuing to stagger into June is idiotic. The people have spoken, will the School Board listen?

THIS! If you care about the quality of education, you need to be pushing for a school calendar that gets out earlier. MUCH earlier. First week of June at the very latest. They are literally just killing time at school to fill up the required hours now and that goes for all grades, even elementary. My 4th grader is turning in their laptops at the end of the day Thursday but they still have 3.5 days after that. What’s the point?!

Either you don't understand how 4th grade works or your child is at a really crappy school. My 4th grader's laptop stays at school, and is really only used for mandatory things (assessments, lexia, etc), so it wouldn't be a big deal at all if it got "turned in". I volunteered today and the teacher has the schedule for the next week written out, they have a LOT to finish up and are going to be doing school work up until the last day.

I will tell you right now Thursday is going to be the last day for anything. They do have a test that day. Then the computers get turned in for good and I don’t think are even in the classrooms anymore. The SBTS has to make sure everything is accounted for and check whose computer is busted and everything and it takes a long time. For kids in instrumental music their instruments were turned in late last week or early this week so there’s no more music specials either.

It’s going to be 3.5 days of watching movies, parties, and playing games. There’s a family picnic on Monday and a lot of kids are going to go home afterward. Even field day is today. It’s literally just fudging time at this point. We could have been done much earlier without a bunch of dragging out of the calendar.

Maybe at your school, not ours.

[Anonymous]

A movie was popped in the day after the SOL was over in mid May. There is little incentive for the kids to go in. You can work on your ‘arts and crafts’ projects at home and skip the three movies a day. They wonder why kids cut classes. They wonder why there is an attendance problem. At some point, you must look inward. This is not all on the kids. All the standards were crammed in during April. By May, it was review time for the mid May tests. Then one month of nothing.

[Anonymous]

MS teacher here. We need to end school earlier (Memorial Day or first week of June) and then expect real learning/work until the second to last day. Otherwise behavior problems and absenteeism are huge. Teachers who show movies are doing so because student computers are being collected, you can't do a summative (real) assessment without giving 2 weeks to retake, and a large portion of kids have stopped coming or are there but out of control and refusing to do work.

Put 2-3 teacher work days at the end of the school year for grading so that teacher can TEACH until the end and still have time to finalize gradebooks.

[Anonymous]

At high school they do a better job, finals for Freshman-Juniors go through Tues. June 16.

[Anonymous]

Our MS is having "field day" all day Tues. 6/16. This involves students choosing where to go around the school property all day long - no requirement to sign up for something or stay for a period or an hour or anything. Teachers have been told students will go to 1st period for attendance, then roam around the grounds all day, then report to last period for attendance before busses/dismissal to see if anyone is missing. We were also told students will have their phones on them in case parents need to communicate or pickup. I'm not even exaggerating...how is this safe, legal, or OK? I can't say my MS here because I work there and don't want to get in trouble but I am very concerned.

[Anonymous]

I get it that there has to be some lessening of academic expectations in the last few days, but is it really as bad as people are reporting? My kid is in 4th grade and seems to still mostly be in same routine, but it sounds like that won't be the case in future years. How do principals/teachers justify not teaching for several days or weeks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our MS is having "field day" all day Tues. 6/16. This involves students choosing where to go around the school property all day long - no requirement to sign up for something or stay for a period or an hour or anything. Teachers have been told students will go to 1st period for attendance, then roam around the grounds all day, then report to last period for attendance before busses/dismissal to see if anyone is missing. We were also told students will have their phones on them in case parents need to communicate or pickup. I'm not even exaggerating...how is this safe, legal, or OK? I can't say my MS here because I work there and don't want to get in trouble but I am very concerned.

Wish you could say your school, PP. Field day is obviously chaotic but this sounds like few safeguards or plans are in place. Why couldn't they at least have periods 1, 3, 5, 7 for attendance checkins and figuring out how it's going, giving teachers a chance to reset? And come to think of it where are teachers during all of this roaming time??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My tenth grader has had assignments, projects, tests, and labs up until today. Finals start tomorrow and I am thankful her finals schedule is more project based than test based this year.

I am this poster and my kid goes to Woodson…I am so confused by the large amount of complaints? Where are your kids in school that they have not been doing anything for a month?!?

Junior at Oakton with mostly APs. Great attendance all year but hates going in now because it’s a ghost town. Instruction ended weeks ago.