We will be in Europe regardless of what they decide, and we have winter and spring break plans too coming up. I say get rid of all the silly holidays but I doubt they will do that so just prepare for ghost towns for times aligned with vacations.
Anonymous wrote:I am a staff at HS and the few staff I spoke to about this said they have vacation plans and will be away.
Yeah this is the thing. I'm sort of grumpy about potentially having to shorten or cancel our trip to the beach. But I am appalled that Taylor is actually proposing a calendar change that shortens the summer break for staff. Seems like a recipe for a horrible start to the school year. Unless pre-service week just doesn't matter? I feel like it does but I could be wrong.
He is bluffing! Just like he was bluffing with school ending June 26 so he could convince the teachers union to negotiate a half day 4/15 instead of a full day so he could come to the state BOE and say he added another make up day. He is doing this because the teachers definitely don’t want to start preservice 8/10 so the threat of that will possibly incentivize them to negotiate pivoting full day grading/planning days off to half days that can count as school days. Whether he will be successful, I do not know. But this what is happening. Don’t cancel your beach vacation just yet.
Anonymous wrote:He is bluffing! Just like he was bluffing with school ending June 26 so he could convince the teachers union to negotiate a half day 4/15 instead of a full day so he could come to the state BOE and say he added another make up day. He is doing this because the teachers definitely don’t want to start preservice 8/10 so the threat of that will possibly incentivize them to negotiate pivoting full day grading/planning days off to half days that can count as school days. Whether he will be successful, I do not know. But this what is happening. Don’t cancel your beach vacation just yet.
Why is preservice starting 8/10 instead of 8/13? They’ll be 8 days of it?
Anonymous wrote:We will be in Europe regardless of what they decide, and we have winter and spring break plans too coming up. I say get rid of all the silly holidays but I doubt they will do that so just prepare for ghost towns for times aligned with vacations.
Yes . They should get rid of silly holidays like spring and winter breaks.
Anonymous wrote:Our family plan is to book summer vacation between 8/15 to 8/24. I have not booked yet, but my kids ate looking fowards to it. Can I book them now or not?
The Board is going to rubber stamp this proposal and school will start 8/20. No vacation for you.
Why 8/20? For real?
Because MCPS finally realized that if they want to have all the non-instructional/teacher grading days, professional development days, religious holidays, and a reasonable spring break and Christmas break and some semblance of having snow days and try to hit 180 days of required instructional time, they need to start earlier in August. This schedule change is a good thing.
No, the state said they can't have school after Juneteenth so Taylor is moving the calendar backwards 3 days so he can pretend to have 5 makeup days before Juneteenth. Days nobody will want to use, just like this year. Nothing will change except our shortened summer vacations. Thanks Taylor.
Anonymous wrote:I also think starting school on a Thursday is an unserious proposal, unless they’re ok with teachers not assigning work the first 2 days and going over everything again on Monday when everyone is back.
Lots of private schools start on a Thursday. It is a gentler introduction back to school than a full 5 day week
Anonymous wrote:He is bluffing! Just like he was bluffing with school ending June 26 so he could convince the teachers union to negotiate a half day 4/15 instead of a full day so he could come to the state BOE and say he added another make up day. He is doing this because the teachers definitely don’t want to start preservice 8/10 so the threat of that will possibly incentivize them to negotiate pivoting full day grading/planning days off to half days that can count as school days. Whether he will be successful, I do not know. But this what is happening. Don’t cancel your beach vacation just yet.
Why is preservice starting 8/10 instead of 8/13? They’ll be 8 days of it?
Stupid question here: Is 8/10 the start for New Teacher Orientation and not preservice week? That would make sense because NTO is 3 days long and preservice is 5 days long.
Anonymous wrote:He is bluffing! Just like he was bluffing with school ending June 26 so he could convince the teachers union to negotiate a half day 4/15 instead of a full day so he could come to the state BOE and say he added another make up day. He is doing this because the teachers definitely don’t want to start preservice 8/10 so the threat of that will possibly incentivize them to negotiate pivoting full day grading/planning days off to half days that can count as school days. Whether he will be successful, I do not know. But this what is happening. Don’t cancel your beach vacation just yet.
Why is preservice starting 8/10 instead of 8/13? They’ll be 8 days of it?
Stupid question here: Is 8/10 the start for New Teacher Orientation and not preservice week? That would make sense because NTO is 3 days long and preservice is 5 days long.
That's not what they said at the Board Meeting. They said they were proposing adding two professional days to the start of pre-service week (unclear if they were like preservice days or more asynchronous), but that they would have to negotiate those with the union. It was pretty unclear, but they were definitely not new teacher days.
I think that the kids should go back earlier. Unless you have a beach house or are a SAHP that last week of summer is tough to manage. I do not think the calendar should change for 2026 but it would be good to announce for 2027 now!
Anonymous wrote:I've worked in the system for over twenty years at the elementary level and here are my thoughts...
1) Nobody likes transition day except for Dr. Taylor. It's a waste of time and screws over the K, 6th, and 9th grade teachers.
2) I would be okay with having half-days for grading and reporting in MP 1 and 3. I do think our secondary counterparts need the full day at the end of MP 2 to prepare for their second semester classes.
3) SPED teachers need more IEP writing days given to them but that doesn't impact whether school is open or closed. There's already not enough time to handle the paperwork on our quarterly grading days.
4) When I did my admin program we were told we closed for Christian and Jewish holidays in order to be able to function as a school system. If we remained open, there wouldn't be enough staff to operate the building. While I appreciate the diversity in our county, I don't know what percentage of staff and students celebrate some of the recent holiday additions to our calendar. Perhaps allow everyone excused absences or leave that day.
I agree with this. They do not know if they need to close for operational reasons. Being open for religious holidays next year would let them collect data to determine whether there is an operational need to close moving forward -- another benefit of doing it.
DP. True, but aren't they only considering marking the religious holidays as potential makeup days, not as school days from the outset?
I don't think so. They would do this instead of starting school early, so those are days they would actually be open.
No, on the survey they sent out Thursday, the option is written as "Identifying days of religious observance as inclement weather makeup days."
Well, that's not what they say in the presentation. These are the three options:
Given the scheduled non-instructional days, three options or combinations of options are possible to meet new requirements to add capacity to address inclement weather closures:
1. Open school on non-instructional days that also are religious observances; allow excused absences and minimize instructional conflicts.
2. Reduce the length of Winter Break and/or Spring Break.
The superintendent is recommending the worst of the three options.
They mean that in the event of inclement weather closures requiring makeup days, they could open school on non-instructional days that are also religious observances.
That's not how I read it. The point is not to have to open school a week earlier. The way to do that is to open up on religious holidays instead.
Instead of opening earlier, they could keep the start as it currently is and convert religious days to school days if needed if they have too many snow days.
Exactly. The calendar they already have works if they actually use the days they’ve designated
It seems crazy to me that they won't do this. This is a no-brainer. I can't believe the superintendent instead is recommending starting school a week earlier.
Because when they dared to use Eid this year, a day that was already designated as a makeup day in the calendar the approved, they got backlash from a small part of the community who cried equity to Council so now they’re scared to go by what they’ve already said they would do.
I don't care. At a certain point, our kids need to be in school. MCPS needs to grow a pair and stand up to the county council. And if they designate all religious holidays, not just Muslim ones, as potential makeup days, Muslim residents will not feel targeted.
I don’t either. The sarcasm in my post I guess was not apparent… this whole thing is stupid. Kids need to be in school. We can’t cater to every individuals need to be off
Exactly this. All religious holidays should be potential make-up days. When the last snow day is used and it snows again, the next snow make-up day should be used to make it up. The process that we will use should be communicated now and the potential dates should be listed. At that point, the days used simply depend on when it snows and how long our snow days last. This makes it less personal - this process should not be perceived as personal - it is an operational decision on the part of a very large organization.
Lot simpler to just start school one week earlier. I understand the superintendent’s logic
Not for next year it's not.
Why not? Because you would rather be on vacation?
DP here
Yes! I would rather go on the beach vacation I spent time planning and have been looking forward to.
The world doesn't revolve around your beach vacation, Jan. You have 4 months to make new plans, or your kids can skip out on the first days of school.
Well Marcia, some of us make plans with extended family and others would also be impacted by this change with nonrefundable deposits. We made these plans after the calendar came out because oh I don’t know, you think you can relay on the calendar!
You chose to be cheap and make plans with non-refundable deposits knowing that the MCPS schedule shifted quite a bit over the last two years--were you hiding under a rock when the date of the last day of school changed several times this year? and last year? Most MCPS parents are not like you.
If by “cheap” you mean don’t have thousands of dollars to spend to change this vacation with siblings and grandparents then sure.
We’ve had students in the system for a dozen years and they have NEVER changed the first day of school after the calendar is set.
I hope your vitriol makes you happy.
Not as happy as you insisting that the world revolve around your family's beach plans seems to make you. MCPS needs to start earlier in August if it wants to maintain its professional development days, teacher non-instructional days and many religious holidays. Next year is as good a time as any. You have 4 months to adjust.
And you think it’s just one person who has made plans?
What happens to teachers if they don’t show up for the first few days of preservice week? Can they use PTO for those?
Yes, let's shortchange 150,000+ kids out of 180 days of education because a few people have non-refundable beach week plans.
What will you say when the survey shows what a wildly unpopular option this is?
You know what was wildly unpopular? The schedule for this 2025-2026 academic year where kids got shortchanged instructional time.
+1 million. The only happy people this year were teachers who got an extra week of snow day holidays.
The people complaining on this thread sound like MCPS staffers who want to keep the status quo, so they don't have to work more than 177 days a year again next year.
-1. Starting earlier than already announced inconveniences everyone. Cutting into winter or spring break inconveniences everyone. Potentially using the indicated makeup days within the school year inconveniences a small minority, yes, but is ultimately better for learning because the makeup day would be closer to the missed day of instruction. Adding three days at the end of the year is never helpful, no matter which week in June it is.
Starting earlier in August doesn't inconvenience me. Not sure why you think you speak for "everyone." I'm happy to start earlier in August if it means my kids get 180 days of instructional time. Plenty of other parents feel similarly, particularly many of those with kids in high school who were disproportionately negatively impacted this year due to the loss of AP instructional time.
+1 The people I know with kids in AP classes are happy about this proposed change.
Nothing demonstrates how many kids are in AP classes they can't actual handle like parents worrying about a few days of instruction here and there. If your kid can't hack it without squeezing every drop of classroom time they can, then they're not cut out for the class.
Nothing like the empathy gap of some idiot implying kids in AP classes or their parents are dumb if they want to have the required instructional time they're supposed to be given to cover the curriculum. If you ftake that position, why should kids attend school at all? I guess they could just You Tube their AP classes and teach themselves.
Anonymous wrote:Obviously the best option is to start early.
I think obviously the best option is to use days scheduled for religious observance.
Except that MCPS has clearly indicated it has no intention of using those religous makeup days. So if you opt for an option that isn't given you are basically opting for the status quo we had this year of all MCPS kids getting shortchanged instructional days.
Anonymous wrote:I think that the kids should go back earlier. Unless you have a beach house or are a SAHP that last week of summer is tough to manage. I do not think the calendar should change for 2026 but it would be good to announce for 2027 now!
Anonymous wrote:He is bluffing! Just like he was bluffing with school ending June 26 so he could convince the teachers union to negotiate a half day 4/15 instead of a full day so he could come to the state BOE and say he added another make up day. He is doing this because the teachers definitely don’t want to start preservice 8/10 so the threat of that will possibly incentivize them to negotiate pivoting full day grading/planning days off to half days that can count as school days. Whether he will be successful, I do not know. But this what is happening. Don’t cancel your beach vacation just yet.
This does make more sense than this being an actual proposal.
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MCPS needs to start earlier in August if it wants to maintain its professional development days, teacher non-instructional days and many religious holidays. Next year is as good a time as any. You have 4 months to adjust.