FCPS Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should go back to every Monday being an early release day and reduce the number of random full days they have off.

(We figured out childcare in that era, you can too.)

Seriously? This is such a stupid argument. The half day mondays were a problem for 2 working parents, which there are more of now than there were a decade ago.

Why can't we just have whole days at places in the calendar where they're chunked? two-three day mini breaks instead of one day a week for 6 weeks at a time or whatever nonsense we've had the last couple of years.

DP. No, the early release Mondays were not a problem for 2 working parents or for SAHPs. Aftercare, whether public or private, would cover them. Only WFH parents may have to be flexible, which they can do.

What a privileged remark. Aftercare isn’t free.

Aftercare at SACC is only $200/mo. If you can’t get in, local martial arts places are only $300 to $400/mo.

SACC aftercare is $459/month per kid (for HHI > $132K).

Some of us don’t have that income. Ours came in closer to $200/mo.

[Anonymous]

It's like the school board and the extremely top heavy administration don't actually care about kids actually learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the hell? Where was the public notice on this???

The stuff with LCPS was notice. Too bad they kicked us out of the Virginia Schools Forum, or more would be on the lookout for this.

+1, plus 3 months to prepare childcare over the summer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's like the school board and the extremely top heavy administration don't actually care about kids actually learning.

They got rid of the old early release Mondays at parents' request but it did not help children or learning. They need to bring it back so that elementary school teachers would have proper planning time and less stress and overwork. That's what the administration should do if they care about kids actually learning.

[Anonymous]

When I was a kid in FCPS in the 90s we had half day Mondays. It was great!

[Anonymous]

Teacher here. If students need to stay at school on those days, they can. There will be supervision at school. Parents can choose to have them go home at the early release time or later (at normal dismissal) with double bus runs. Reid mentioned this in the email (vaguely).

[Anonymous]

So this is only for the 24-25 year, please say yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's like the school board and the extremely top heavy administration don't actually care about kids actually learning.

They got rid of the old early release Mondays at parents' request but it did not help children or learning. They need to bring it back so that elementary school teachers would have proper planning time and less stress and overwork. That's what the administration should do if they care about kids actually learning.

When early Monday release time ended they actually added planning time for ES teachers in an effort to help close the gap with the planning time MS and HS teachers get. Early release hours were often filled with meetings and the specials blocks were shorter. At that time, under Dr Garza, they added a policy that gave ES teachers a minimum of 300 minutes planning a week. Of that, at least 240 was supposed to be teacher directed unencumbered planning time. The problem is many administrators didn’t adhere to that and instead planned collaborative team meetings a few days a week which reduced the teacher directed time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was a kid in FCPS in the 90s we had half day Mondays. It was great!

They were never half days. They were 2 hour early release days on Mondays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. If students need to stay at school on those days, they can. There will be supervision at school. Parents can choose to have them go home at the early release time or later (at normal dismissal) with double bus runs. Reid mentioned this in the email (vaguely).

If this is true, I’ll feel a lot better about it. But I need more details - that was way too vague.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's like the school board and the extremely top heavy administration don't actually care about kids actually learning.

They got rid of the old early release Mondays at parents' request but it did not help children or learning. They need to bring it back so that elementary school teachers would have proper planning time and less stress and overwork. That's what the administration should do if they care about kids actually learning.

If they had said it was for planning time, it would make more sense. If they gave teachers more resources so that they weren't always scrambling for youtube videos and downloaded worksheets, that would also make sense. But saying it's because these professional teachers need more professional development - that is a farce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. If students need to stay at school on those days, they can. There will be supervision at school. Parents can choose to have them go home at the early release time or later (at normal dismissal) with double bus runs. Reid mentioned this in the email (vaguely).

The students can stay at school in a "guaranteed and free" sense or in a "if space allows and for $$$" sense?

Because those are two VERY different things!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Edison, Hayfield, Lewis, Mount Vernon, South County, West Potomac, Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, and Woodson.

September 16
October 21
November 18
February 10
March 10
April 21
May 12
Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Herndon, Langley, Madison, Marshall, McLean, South Lakes, Centreville, Chantilly, Fairfax, Oakton, Robinson, and Westfield.

September 23
October 28
November 25
February 24
March 17
April 28
May 19


If you look at the calendar and surrounding holidays, some of these dates are a complete joke. Like the whole week is a waste several times for our assigned dates.

Is that posted somewhere? Of course I have one kid at a center and one kid at our local elementary and they're in different pyramids (Lake Braddock and Robinson) so they won't even be off early the same Monday???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here. If students need to stay at school on those days, they can. There will be supervision at school. Parents can choose to have them go home at the early release time or later (at normal dismissal) with double bus runs. Reid mentioned this in the email (vaguely).

If this is true, I’ll feel a lot better about it. But I need more details - that was way too vague.

I suspect this is what the IAs and specialists will be doing during while the classroom teachers are receiving training. The logistics are still getting worked out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Enjoy the new Union BS

Teacher hater has entered the chat.

PP probably has a kid with behavior issues, and blames it on "the pandemic."

PP.
I am a union hater. Reason: Union is a purely political organization and only cares about its politics and doesn't care a thing about students.

Most of the teachers I had or met so far are wonderful and are staying away from those BS. But now a small minority of union activists will drag those teachers to the mud and the whole school system as well.