2026-2027 calendar updates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

December 23 was recently added to the calendar. For many years, December 24 was the first day of winter break. So I think it would be fine to have school on December 23, which falls on a Wednesday. Students would have three days of school that week and then start vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

DP

It is annoying to have school on those days and many won't show up, but I think it is better to do that than start the school year early. I think how the school year starts matters more than a couple of days that will certainly not be terribly valuable but probably won't be harmful.

The 180 day requirement is the sake of a number but if you want two days take 11/9 and 4/22/27 that brings them up to 3 snow days and the rest can be virtual. If they won't go virtual then use 3/9, 3Q grade day and see if President's Day will be allowed again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

December 23 was recently added to the calendar. For many years, December 24 was the first day of winter break. So I think it would be fine to have school on December 23, which falls on a Wednesday. Students would have three days of school that week and then start vacation.
-----------------------
That is a byproduct of Maryland's outdated 180 day + makeup day requirement.
It would be best not to have school that week at all as almost all schools across the country sans the northeast get that week off, but if not that full week the fewer days that week the better. Why does much of the northeast have school December 21,22 and in some cases December 23? Because a bunch of those states have the same 180+ makeup day law.
On the other hand being closed on November 9 and April 22, 2027 is pointless. Those are days that would be perfectly fine for school, carry good value and have typical attendance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

December 23 was recently added to the calendar. For many years, December 24 was the first day of winter break. So I think it would be fine to have school on December 23, which falls on a Wednesday. Students would have three days of school that week and then start vacation.
-----------------------
That is a byproduct of Maryland's outdated 180 day + makeup day requirement.
It would be best not to have school that week at all as almost all schools across the country sans the northeast get that week off, but if not that full week the fewer days that week the better. Why does much of the northeast have school December 21,22 and in some cases December 23? Because a bunch of those states have the same 180+ makeup day law.
On the other hand being closed on November 9 and April 22, 2027 is pointless. Those are days that would be perfectly fine for school, carry good value and have typical attendance.

The answer to that question is that we celebrate so many religious holidays here. Other school systems can complete a 180 day + school year in a reasonable period with either a longer "Christmas" type break or a week off in February. We use up all of our days with single days off all over the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

I don’t know why it couldn’t. If people want to make travel plans that have them missing school beyond the actual days of break, that’s their choice and they might miss something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

I don’t know why it couldn’t. If people want to make travel plans that have them missing school beyond the actual days of break, that’s their choice and they might miss something.

It's UNREASONABLE to expect people to wait for Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve to travel especially since those are major celebration days, thus these breaks should carry at least one day before them. Most of the country gets proper time off it's only Maryland and much of the northeast that has this problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

DP

It is annoying to have school on those days and many won't show up, but I think it is better to do that than start the school year early. I think how the school year starts matters more than a couple of days that will certainly not be terribly valuable but probably won't be harmful.

The 180 day requirement is the sake of a number but if you want two days take 11/9 and 4/22/27 that brings them up to 3 snow days and the rest can be virtual. If they won't go virtual then use 3/9, 3Q grade day and see if President's Day will be allowed again.

It's not for the sake of a number it's to comply with state law

If MCPS doesn't make an effort to comply with state law we end up in a situation like this year and last year with calendar changes and disruption to people's plans. Try to change the law if you want but until that happens I wish MCPS would do a better job creating calendars (from the start) that allow for makeup days they are actually willing to use and occur before the last scheduled day of school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

+100. This. Starting school a week earlier is not just impacting teachers. Think of all the paraeducators and other 10-month employees. Starting school means all the 10-month employees need to start pre-service week on Aug 12. My international trip was booked at the end of March and I will not be forking over $2000 to change it just because MCPS can’t get their $hit together. My coworker said good luck looking for subs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that's so irritating about this is that it's not necessary to cause all this angst.
1. MSDE is not changing requirements for this year at all.
2. There are so many choices that could be made that have a less disruptive impact on the community as a whole.
*Make Transition Day a school day - do traditional have day transition during preservice.
*Make November 9 a school day - occurs the day AFTER Diwali.
*Make the day before Thanksgiving a half day.
*Make December 23 a half day or a full day.
*Make one or two professional days half days. Allow teachers to complete the additional PD asynchronously.
*Make even one or two teacher grading days into half days. Extend due date for grade submission a couple of days beyond quarter to allow extra time.
*Make ALL religious holidays snow make-up days. When the last snow day is used and a make-up is needed, the next make-up day on the calendar is used automatically. This makes it less personal.
*Lobby MSDE to allow schools to provide instruction on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and most certainly in the case of snow make-ups.

None of these choices have as great an impact as bumping the school calendar up a week at this time. And making a number of these changes would create a calendar that flows much more smoothly than the current one while easily fitting 180 days and plenty of snow make-ups within a reasonable window.

Agree completely.

Do you really think the day before Thanksgiving or December 23 carries any value or is it just for the number of days game? If the latter it's time for Maryland to change the law. If it's the former, what will get done those days?

I don’t know why it couldn’t. If people want to make travel plans that have them missing school beyond the actual days of break, that’s their choice and they might miss something.

It's UNREASONABLE to expect people to wait for Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve to travel especially since those are major celebration days, thus these breaks should carry at least one day before them. Most of the country gets proper time off it's only Maryland and much of the northeast that has this problem.

? School gets out mid afternoon on full days. Even earlier if it’s a half day. MANY people don’t travel at all, but even for those that do, you can get to all but the furthest destinations that same afternoon/evening. Neither holiday (Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving) starts in the morning, either. They are much later in the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows what they will do. Maybe MCEA is calling Taylor's bluff which I support. If your kid misses the first two days of school, it will be fine, hardly catastrophic if not ideal. I assume it will be worse for the teachers to have kids slowly streaming in the first 3 days of school. Seems like this will mean starting off with 2 fewer days of actual instruction. If teachers miss 3 days of preservice, I feel for them and hope they don't lose leave days because of it. Taylor and the BOE have done a lot of stupid things, this is one on a very long list of them.

Of course they will have to take leave if they don’t show up for work.

That sucks because in order to show up many will have to lose money on travel that has been booked or other jobs. I don't know about you but I think that's a 5h!tty way to treat my kid's wonderful teachers.

I hope teachers are pushing MCPS to choose another option, and for the union to negotiate to allow makeups as 1/2 days on grading and reporting. Otherwise they will need to show up as early as Aug 10th.

MCEA told teachers there is nothing they can do except fill out the survey, unfortunately. I agree that they could be doing more to push Taylor and the board. But they didn't even poll teachers.

MCEA has no input on the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows what they will do. Maybe MCEA is calling Taylor's bluff which I support. If your kid misses the first two days of school, it will be fine, hardly catastrophic if not ideal. I assume it will be worse for the teachers to have kids slowly streaming in the first 3 days of school. Seems like this will mean starting off with 2 fewer days of actual instruction. If teachers miss 3 days of preservice, I feel for them and hope they don't lose leave days because of it. Taylor and the BOE have done a lot of stupid things, this is one on a very long list of them.

Of course they will have to take leave if they don’t show up for work.

That sucks because in order to show up many will have to lose money on travel that has been booked or other jobs. I don't know about you but I think that's a 5h!tty way to treat my kid's wonderful teachers.

I hope teachers are pushing MCPS to choose another option, and for the union to negotiate to allow makeups as 1/2 days on grading and reporting. Otherwise they will need to show up as early as Aug 10th.

MCEA told teachers there is nothing they can do except fill out the survey, unfortunately. I agree that they could be doing more to push Taylor and the board. But they didn't even poll teachers.

MCEA has no input on the calendar.

They have impact on the grading days. That’s what TT is targeting. He wants MCEA to relent on that contract requirement.

[Anonymous]

The fact this is getting 5 minutes on the calendar for 4/30 means they aren’t sharing the survey results and are going to ram this through. This isn’t okay. Did anyone sign up for public testimony?

I don’t like this either way, but if this was actually adding 3 days to the calendar (starting earlier, ending the same), I’d feel differently than them just shifting the calendar earlier and refusing to use the makeup days they’ve already designated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows what they will do. Maybe MCEA is calling Taylor's bluff which I support. If your kid misses the first two days of school, it will be fine, hardly catastrophic if not ideal. I assume it will be worse for the teachers to have kids slowly streaming in the first 3 days of school. Seems like this will mean starting off with 2 fewer days of actual instruction. If teachers miss 3 days of preservice, I feel for them and hope they don't lose leave days because of it. Taylor and the BOE have done a lot of stupid things, this is one on a very long list of them.

Of course they will have to take leave if they don’t show up for work.

That sucks because in order to show up many will have to lose money on travel that has been booked or other jobs. I don't know about you but I think that's a 5h!tty way to treat my kid's wonderful teachers.

I hope teachers are pushing MCPS to choose another option, and for the union to negotiate to allow makeups as 1/2 days on grading and reporting. Otherwise they will need to show up as early as Aug 10th.

MCEA told teachers there is nothing they can do except fill out the survey, unfortunately. I agree that they could be doing more to push Taylor and the board. But they didn't even poll teachers.

MCEA has no input on the calendar.

They have impact on the grading days. That’s what TT is targeting. He wants MCEA to relent on that contract requirement.

I support MCEA holding firm on this. TT and BOE have multiple other options that don't harm teachers. TT chose violence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who knows what they will do. Maybe MCEA is calling Taylor's bluff which I support. If your kid misses the first two days of school, it will be fine, hardly catastrophic if not ideal. I assume it will be worse for the teachers to have kids slowly streaming in the first 3 days of school. Seems like this will mean starting off with 2 fewer days of actual instruction. If teachers miss 3 days of preservice, I feel for them and hope they don't lose leave days because of it. Taylor and the BOE have done a lot of stupid things, this is one on a very long list of them.

Of course they will have to take leave if they don’t show up for work.

That sucks because in order to show up many will have to lose money on travel that has been booked or other jobs. I don't know about you but I think that's a 5h!tty way to treat my kid's wonderful teachers.

I hope teachers are pushing MCPS to choose another option, and for the union to negotiate to allow makeups as 1/2 days on grading and reporting. Otherwise they will need to show up as early as Aug 10th.

MCEA told teachers there is nothing they can do except fill out the survey, unfortunately. I agree that they could be doing more to push Taylor and the board. But they didn't even poll teachers.

MCEA has no input on the calendar.

They have impact on the grading days. That’s what TT is targeting. He wants MCEA to relent on that contract requirement.

Teachers need those days for grading and reporting. Better to get rid of a few PD days, and make the day before Thanksgiving and 12/23 early release days, and get rid of transition day.

Better yet, people need to advocate for counting hours of instruction or (not and) days.

In reality MCPS never utilizes the feedback from its surveys. They’ve already made the decision regarding the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Are any MCEA members on this thread? I'm curious if MCEA has sent any communication with their members about anything going on behind the scenes (if anything is going on).