Half-days on Wednesdays!?

[Anonymous]

Our charter adopted half day Wednesday starting next year. I’m disappointed. They have pointed out there will be fewer random days off and same amount of instructional. But it’s really the worst time ever to make this change. Get on track, bring kids up to speed with EXTRA time and support first. It feels like prioritizing an easy workweek over what is best for kids who need more in person support now that teachers are vaccinated. I don’t believe any new resources will suddenly show up for the many kids who are behind grade level. Learning loss is different than learning nothing.

[Anonymous]

I am 55 years old and was educated in what was considered a very fine public school system in Massachusetts. We had half-day Wednesdays every week from 1st thru 6th grade and every other Wednesday in 7th and 8th grade. It was considered teacher development time, and so normal and routine that it was completely unremarkable. And yes, both my parents WOTH fulltime.

[Anonymous]

We live in the midwest and have had half days on Wednesdays ever since my son started k (now in 3rd). He just goes to the district's after school care on those days when needed.

[Anonymous]

Pp again. By half day, I mean they get out 2 hours earlier than usual. I'm sure your district is going to do something similar, not literal HALF days. They're called early out says.

[Anonymous]

I would be all for half day Wednesdays if it meant I could pick up my kids and go for a hike or take them to soccer practice or some enrichment activity. But what it means for my middle class working family is more money, more time in mediocre aftercare, more mom guilt. Maybe DCPS will prove me wrong, but their track record this year is suggesting otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am 55 years old and was educated in what was considered a very fine public school system in Massachusetts. We had half-day Wednesdays every week from 1st thru 6th grade and every other Wednesday in 7th and 8th grade. It was considered teacher development time, and so normal and routine that it was completely unremarkable. And yes, both my parents WOTH fulltime.

Cool, did you also just live through a pandemic with 18 months of disrupted education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the knee jerk rejection of it. Why would you "organize against" this without learning what it is and how it will impact you directly?

I also don't understand the obsession with "hours of instruction". If this year has taught me anything, it is that hours of instruction is a poor proxy for learning, and that kids need a lot more variety in their schedules in order to learn (including breaks and independent study time and opportunities to talk to their classmates in an unstructured way). I feel like a half-day on Wednesdays would be a great opportunity to not only provide teachers with professional development time (which they need and deserve -- who doesn't want their kids' teachers to be growing and improving?), but could also really benefit kids, especially those who need acceleration. But I could also foresee this being an opportunity for non-academic interest groups, literacy tutoring with volunteers, and other enrichment activities. Or just a break from academics to play and be active in aftercare.

Why is everyone automatically assuming this is bad? I don't get it.

Is this a serious question? Because I KNOW how it would affect me: it would reduce instructional time and regular routines at exactly the time we need to get those things back. Kids don't need "acceleration" right now (by which I assume you mean remediation, but we're not allowed to say that anymore) - those kids need regular, in-class instruction, possibly LONGER days and a longer school year.

This is spoken like a TFA bot. Do we remember when DCPS tried the longer hours, longer school year pilot. Kids don’t show for the longer year; kids, especially ES, burn out in a longer day. More time does not equal more instruction this isn’t a simple input/output table

You have got to be joking. You can’t possibly be arguing for LESS school now, and thinking anyone gives a f about union bugaboos like TSA?

Shows how much you know. TFA are anti union trained teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No idea if this is real or not, though I personally would be okay with it as long as we were given lots of notice and options for childcare (ie extended aftercare hours on Wednesdays). As with everything about return to IPL, there are workable options available, but DCPS will almost certainly choose to communicate nothing and then spring it on everyone when it's an impossible imposition and everyone will be pissed.

Classic.

I grew up with an early dismissal Wed. and our charter already had half day Fridays. But the communication part is the maddening, avoidable, issue. Our charter has made a bad situation so much worse this year with horrible communication. Either lack of it. Providing it but being inanely unclear. Or saying things that just made parents upset when nothing needed to be said at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our charter adopted half day Wednesday starting next year. I’m disappointed. They have pointed out there will be fewer random days off and same amount of instructional. But it’s really the worst time ever to make this change. Get on track, bring kids up to speed with EXTRA time and support first. It feels like prioritizing an easy workweek over what is best for kids who need more in person support now that teachers are vaccinated. I don’t believe any new resources will suddenly show up for the many kids who are behind grade level. Learning loss is different than learning nothing.

Are they going to provide aftercare on those Wednesdays? Creating disruptions in parents’ work week is a really brutal thing to do at this point.

[Anonymous]

Nobody cares what you grew up with wherever that was. The point is that DCPS and charters apparently now feel like the baseline has changed to “we can remove instructional hours if we feel like it” because this year has shown that parents and kids are powerless and that whatever bureaucratic or self-interested agenda that exists can now just give or take away class time at a whim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the knee jerk rejection of it. Why would you "organize against" this without learning what it is and how it will impact you directly?

I also don't understand the obsession with "hours of instruction". If this year has taught me anything, it is that hours of instruction is a poor proxy for learning, and that kids need a lot more variety in their schedules in order to learn (including breaks and independent study time and opportunities to talk to their classmates in an unstructured way). I feel like a half-day on Wednesdays would be a great opportunity to not only provide teachers with professional development time (which they need and deserve -- who doesn't want their kids' teachers to be growing and improving?), but could also really benefit kids, especially those who need acceleration. But I could also foresee this being an opportunity for non-academic interest groups, literacy tutoring with volunteers, and other enrichment activities. Or just a break from academics to play and be active in aftercare.

Why is everyone automatically assuming this is bad? I don't get it.

Is this a serious question? Because I KNOW how it would affect me: it would reduce instructional time and regular routines at exactly the time we need to get those things back. Kids don't need "acceleration" right now (by which I assume you mean remediation, but we're not allowed to say that anymore) - those kids need regular, in-class instruction, possibly LONGER days and a longer school year.

This is spoken like a TFA bot. Do we remember when DCPS tried the longer hours, longer school year pilot. Kids don’t show for the longer year; kids, especially ES, burn out in a longer day. More time does not equal more instruction this isn’t a simple input/output table

You have got to be joking. You can’t possibly be arguing for LESS school now, and thinking anyone gives a f about union bugaboos like TSA?

Shows how much you know. TFA are anti union trained teachers.

you have reading comprehension problems. and like everything “anti-union,” I now support TFA a lot more than I did because I’ve seen how utterly self-interested and disengenuous the teachers unions are.

[Anonymous]

Half day should be on a Friday so we can get the weekend started early. Middle of the week is disruptive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our charter adopted half day Wednesday starting next year. I’m disappointed. They have pointed out there will be fewer random days off and same amount of instructional. But it’s really the worst time ever to make this change. Get on track, bring kids up to speed with EXTRA time and support first. It feels like prioritizing an easy workweek over what is best for kids who need more in person support now that teachers are vaccinated. I don’t believe any new resources will suddenly show up for the many kids who are behind grade level. Learning loss is different than learning nothing.

Are they going to provide aftercare on those Wednesdays? Creating disruptions in parents’ work week is a really brutal thing to do at this point.

They claim they will but given teachers are not even teaching in person yet I’m not confident of anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am 55 years old and was educated in what was considered a very fine public school system in Massachusetts. We had half-day Wednesdays every week from 1st thru 6th grade and every other Wednesday in 7th and 8th grade. It was considered teacher development time, and so normal and routine that it was completely unremarkable. And yes, both my parents WOTH fulltime.

Was a large portion of your school system considered low income? Did a large portion not attend virtual school for an entire year? Was a large portion of your school system already below grade level? That is what DCPS is dealing with here. I went to a fine school system in NY- every year kids from my HS (250 kids per grade) went to all the Ivies, MIT, etc. I would never advocate that the systems at that school be used in DCPS, it’s apples and oranges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am 55 years old and was educated in what was considered a very fine public school system in Massachusetts. We had half-day Wednesdays every week from 1st thru 6th grade and every other Wednesday in 7th and 8th grade. It was considered teacher development time, and so normal and routine that it was completely unremarkable. And yes, both my parents WOTH fulltime.

Was a large portion of your school system considered low income? Did a large portion not attend virtual school for an entire year? Was a large portion of your school system already below grade level? That is what DCPS is dealing with here. I went to a fine school system in NY- every year kids from my HS (250 kids per grade) went to all the Ivies, MIT, etc. I would never advocate that the systems at that school be used in DCPS, it’s apples and oranges.

Precisely.

Maybe you're trying to make us feel better with "I had half days once a week, and I turned out fine!" but it isn't helpful. There's probably a reason DCPS hasn't done half days before (or at least in a long time). Considering doing so now after the year we've had is mind-boggling.