The legislature may end up reverting the makeup days...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS not realize that nearly half their kids can’t read well and 2/3 aren’t proficient in grade level math? But sure, let’s reward MCPS staff with 5 extra vacation snow days for not putting more than 1 snow day in the calendar and refusing to use the 3 makeup days in the calendar.

On Tuesday, August 27, MCPS received test scores from the 2024 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), which tests students’ math, reading and science skills, that show encouraging signs of growth and recovery and points to the fact that this trend may be starting to buck.

According to the recently-released MCAP testing data, the assessment saw around 55.3% of MCPS students achieve a rating of “proficient” in English Language Arts and 33.4% in mathematics. This marks a slight increase from the 54.4% and 32.8% of MCPS students who achieved the same rating of “proficient” in 2023 on the English Language Arts and mathematics tests, respectively. The county aims for constant improvement in academic performance, including a steeper increase in test scores. “We just need to accelerate [improvements], so we see a faster pace of growth,” MCPS Board of Education president Karla Silvestre said in an interview with Moco 360.

This has nothing to do with rewarding staff and they are two seperate issues. Its ironic people are saying virtual isn't effective, for a few days, when you look at these scores and how they've declined over the last 15 or so years. MCPS and the BOE need to be held accountable. The county council needs to stop heavily funding a failing school system.

They’re not separate issues in that the end outcome this year (and last year) is that MCPS staff gets more vacation/snow days instead of providing instructional time, and educational outcomes are abysmal.

I would be fine with virtual learning for snow emergencies, but I’m just a parent. If McPS refuses to submit the virtual learning plan for weather to the state of Maryland the way other Maryland districts and the BoE won’t hold them accountable for what they promised to do in 2024-not sure what will help ensure that our students don’t get shortchanged instructional time and continue to fall further behind.

The only bright side to this legislation is that it greatly reduces the chance that MCPS would try to adopt virtual days.

You sound dim. I would much rather my child have virtual days of education rather than the current status quo of losing 5 school days this year.

I'm not happy about losing 5 days either, but virtual days are worse than nothing.

I think it depends on the age. For the younger kids, it may be worse, but let's face it, losing 5 days of K is not a huge deal learning-wise. For the older kids, the teachers should be able to give them some assignments ("read chapters 4 and 5, do the HW, submit the quiz") to not be quite as behind and that should also count in terms of school days. When they had 1 or 2 days of asynchronous learning a couple of years ago, I actually found it fine: The teachers didn't have to set up for online learning, the kids didn’t miss on the snow. Main issue was for parents who had to miss work and maybe for the youngest kids.

Neither of my kids' teachers acknowledged the supposed "asynchronous" day in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS not realize that nearly half their kids can’t read well and 2/3 aren’t proficient in grade level math? But sure, let’s reward MCPS staff with 5 extra vacation snow days for not putting more than 1 snow day in the calendar and refusing to use the 3 makeup days in the calendar.

On Tuesday, August 27, MCPS received test scores from the 2024 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), which tests students’ math, reading and science skills, that show encouraging signs of growth and recovery and points to the fact that this trend may be starting to buck.

According to the recently-released MCAP testing data, the assessment saw around 55.3% of MCPS students achieve a rating of “proficient” in English Language Arts and 33.4% in mathematics. This marks a slight increase from the 54.4% and 32.8% of MCPS students who achieved the same rating of “proficient” in 2023 on the English Language Arts and mathematics tests, respectively. The county aims for constant improvement in academic performance, including a steeper increase in test scores. “We just need to accelerate [improvements], so we see a faster pace of growth,” MCPS Board of Education president Karla Silvestre said in an interview with Moco 360.

This has nothing to do with rewarding staff and they are two seperate issues. Its ironic people are saying virtual isn't effective, for a few days, when you look at these scores and how they've declined over the last 15 or so years. MCPS and the BOE need to be held accountable. The county council needs to stop heavily funding a failing school system.

They’re not separate issues in that the end outcome this year (and last year) is that MCPS staff gets more vacation/snow days instead of providing instructional time, and educational outcomes are abysmal.

I would be fine with virtual learning for snow emergencies, but I’m just a parent. If McPS refuses to submit the virtual learning plan for weather to the state of Maryland the way other Maryland districts and the BoE won’t hold them accountable for what they promised to do in 2024-not sure what will help ensure that our students don’t get shortchanged instructional time and continue to fall further behind.

The only bright side to this legislation is that it greatly reduces the chance that MCPS would try to adopt virtual days.

You sound dim. I would much rather my child have virtual days of education rather than the current status quo of losing 5 school days this year.

I'm not happy about losing 5 days either, but virtual days are worse than nothing.

Show us the evidence that virtual learning has worse outcomes than providing no instruction at all. Because all you have is an opinion, and not a particularly informed one at that.

+1 This just sounds like MCPS staff who would rather just pocket their 5 extra snow days of vacation than ever be asked to teach during a day with inclement weather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting a new threat from the thread on HB1084 with a few updates that are going to get missed otherwise:

The bill passed out of the MD House today and on to the Senate but was amended in some important ways --

The bill only allows MCPS the ability to reduce the number of days in school below 180 in the event of inclement weather (or other specific issues detailed in the legislation) and still requires them to plan a calendar with 180 minimum days. It also sets a floor at 175 days -- MCPS cannot go under 175 days.

I still think we need to push MCPS to better plan for snow days, but this is far better than the original text that would have given MCPS carte blanche to reduce the number of days in the year.

It needs to pass the Senate still but this would be retroactive meaning schools would end on June 18...

https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2026RS/amds/bil_0004/HB1084_51312501.pdf

Can you point to a link showing that the House is sending the version amended by second reading to the Senate? I see on Legiscan that the MD House passed it after second reading but I read elsewhere (MoCo show) there was to be a third reading in the House before moving to the Senate.

I think there's always a third reading before bills go to the other chamber, unless there's something different about emergency bills? But if they pass it on second reading there's no reason it wouldn't pass on third reading, so maybe that's what the person meant?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS not realize that nearly half their kids can’t read well and 2/3 aren’t proficient in grade level math? But sure, let’s reward MCPS staff with 5 extra vacation snow days for not putting more than 1 snow day in the calendar and refusing to use the 3 makeup days in the calendar.

On Tuesday, August 27, MCPS received test scores from the 2024 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), which tests students’ math, reading and science skills, that show encouraging signs of growth and recovery and points to the fact that this trend may be starting to buck.

According to the recently-released MCAP testing data, the assessment saw around 55.3% of MCPS students achieve a rating of “proficient” in English Language Arts and 33.4% in mathematics. This marks a slight increase from the 54.4% and 32.8% of MCPS students who achieved the same rating of “proficient” in 2023 on the English Language Arts and mathematics tests, respectively. The county aims for constant improvement in academic performance, including a steeper increase in test scores. “We just need to accelerate [improvements], so we see a faster pace of growth,” MCPS Board of Education president Karla Silvestre said in an interview with Moco 360.

This has nothing to do with rewarding staff and they are two seperate issues. Its ironic people are saying virtual isn't effective, for a few days, when you look at these scores and how they've declined over the last 15 or so years. MCPS and the BOE need to be held accountable. The county council needs to stop heavily funding a failing school system.

They’re not separate issues in that the end outcome this year (and last year) is that MCPS staff gets more vacation/snow days instead of providing instructional time, and educational outcomes are abysmal.

I would be fine with virtual learning for snow emergencies, but I’m just a parent. If McPS refuses to submit the virtual learning plan for weather to the state of Maryland the way other Maryland districts and the BoE won’t hold them accountable for what they promised to do in 2024-not sure what will help ensure that our students don’t get shortchanged instructional time and continue to fall further behind.

The only bright side to this legislation is that it greatly reduces the chance that MCPS would try to adopt virtual days.

You sound dim. I would much rather my child have virtual days of education rather than the current status quo of losing 5 school days this year.

I'm not happy about losing 5 days either, but virtual days are worse than nothing.

Show us the evidence that virtual learning has worse outcomes than providing no instruction at all. Because all you have is an opinion, and not a particularly informed one at that.

+1 This just sounds like MCPS staff who would rather just pocket their 5 extra snow days of vacation than ever be asked to teach during a day with inclement weather.

Agree. This is clearly union-driven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Massachusetts has city and district schools not county. They also have higher state taxes for services like plowing.

There's also a higher tolerance for walking/driving on less than prisitne streets/sidewalks. Cape Cod is a mess right now due to power outages and those schools are likely to remain closed all week but most of the Boston area schools were back by Wednesday despite getting a fair amount of snow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS not realize that nearly half their kids can’t read well and 2/3 aren’t proficient in grade level math? But sure, let’s reward MCPS staff with 5 extra vacation snow days for not putting more than 1 snow day in the calendar and refusing to use the 3 makeup days in the calendar.

On Tuesday, August 27, MCPS received test scores from the 2024 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), which tests students’ math, reading and science skills, that show encouraging signs of growth and recovery and points to the fact that this trend may be starting to buck.

According to the recently-released MCAP testing data, the assessment saw around 55.3% of MCPS students achieve a rating of “proficient” in English Language Arts and 33.4% in mathematics. This marks a slight increase from the 54.4% and 32.8% of MCPS students who achieved the same rating of “proficient” in 2023 on the English Language Arts and mathematics tests, respectively. The county aims for constant improvement in academic performance, including a steeper increase in test scores. “We just need to accelerate [improvements], so we see a faster pace of growth,” MCPS Board of Education president Karla Silvestre said in an interview with Moco 360.

This has nothing to do with rewarding staff and they are two seperate issues. Its ironic people are saying virtual isn't effective, for a few days, when you look at these scores and how they've declined over the last 15 or so years. MCPS and the BOE need to be held accountable. The county council needs to stop heavily funding a failing school system.

They’re not separate issues in that the end outcome this year (and last year) is that MCPS staff gets more vacation/snow days instead of providing instructional time, and educational outcomes are abysmal.

I would be fine with virtual learning for snow emergencies, but I’m just a parent. If McPS refuses to submit the virtual learning plan for weather to the state of Maryland the way other Maryland districts and the BoE won’t hold them accountable for what they promised to do in 2024-not sure what will help ensure that our students don’t get shortchanged instructional time and continue to fall further behind.

The only bright side to this legislation is that it greatly reduces the chance that MCPS would try to adopt virtual days.

You sound dim. I would much rather my child have virtual days of education rather than the current status quo of losing 5 school days this year.

I'm not happy about losing 5 days either, but virtual days are worse than nothing.

Show us the evidence that virtual learning has worse outcomes than providing no instruction at all. Because all you have is an opinion, and not a particularly informed one at that.

+1 This just sounds like MCPS staff who would rather just pocket their 5 extra snow days of vacation than ever be asked to teach during a day with inclement weather.

Yay. The lazy teacher argument. That never gets old on DCUM.

- teacher who works over 65 hours every single week, including snow days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS not realize that nearly half their kids can’t read well and 2/3 aren’t proficient in grade level math? But sure, let’s reward MCPS staff with 5 extra vacation snow days for not putting more than 1 snow day in the calendar and refusing to use the 3 makeup days in the calendar.

On Tuesday, August 27, MCPS received test scores from the 2024 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), which tests students’ math, reading and science skills, that show encouraging signs of growth and recovery and points to the fact that this trend may be starting to buck.

According to the recently-released MCAP testing data, the assessment saw around 55.3% of MCPS students achieve a rating of “proficient” in English Language Arts and 33.4% in mathematics. This marks a slight increase from the 54.4% and 32.8% of MCPS students who achieved the same rating of “proficient” in 2023 on the English Language Arts and mathematics tests, respectively. The county aims for constant improvement in academic performance, including a steeper increase in test scores. “We just need to accelerate [improvements], so we see a faster pace of growth,” MCPS Board of Education president Karla Silvestre said in an interview with Moco 360.

This has nothing to do with rewarding staff and they are two seperate issues. Its ironic people are saying virtual isn't effective, for a few days, when you look at these scores and how they've declined over the last 15 or so years. MCPS and the BOE need to be held accountable. The county council needs to stop heavily funding a failing school system.

They’re not separate issues in that the end outcome this year (and last year) is that MCPS staff gets more vacation/snow days instead of providing instructional time, and educational outcomes are abysmal.

I would be fine with virtual learning for snow emergencies, but I’m just a parent. If McPS refuses to submit the virtual learning plan for weather to the state of Maryland the way other Maryland districts and the BoE won’t hold them accountable for what they promised to do in 2024-not sure what will help ensure that our students don’t get shortchanged instructional time and continue to fall further behind.

The only bright side to this legislation is that it greatly reduces the chance that MCPS would try to adopt virtual days.

You sound dim. I would much rather my child have virtual days of education rather than the current status quo of losing 5 school days this year.

I'm not happy about losing 5 days either, but virtual days are worse than nothing.

Show us the evidence that virtual learning has worse outcomes than providing no instruction at all. Because all you have is an opinion, and not a particularly informed one at that.

+1 This just sounds like MCPS staff who would rather just pocket their 5 extra snow days of vacation than ever be asked to teach during a day with inclement weather.

I'm sure they don't mind, but that's not the driving factor. The parents of high schoolers here are forgetting that younger kids exist. There's no good way to do virtual at the elementary level. Yes, some districts do it anyway, but most don't.

[Anonymous]

On issue with virtual is if they ever do Code Orange and virtual then child care providers are open, are they to be expected to supervise virtual? I know they have done it before, but are they set up to do it now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does MCPS not realize that nearly half their kids can’t read well and 2/3 aren’t proficient in grade level math? But sure, let’s reward MCPS staff with 5 extra vacation snow days for not putting more than 1 snow day in the calendar and refusing to use the 3 makeup days in the calendar.

On Tuesday, August 27, MCPS received test scores from the 2024 Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program (MCAP), which tests students’ math, reading and science skills, that show encouraging signs of growth and recovery and points to the fact that this trend may be starting to buck.

According to the recently-released MCAP testing data, the assessment saw around 55.3% of MCPS students achieve a rating of “proficient” in English Language Arts and 33.4% in mathematics. This marks a slight increase from the 54.4% and 32.8% of MCPS students who achieved the same rating of “proficient” in 2023 on the English Language Arts and mathematics tests, respectively. The county aims for constant improvement in academic performance, including a steeper increase in test scores. “We just need to accelerate [improvements], so we see a faster pace of growth,” MCPS Board of Education president Karla Silvestre said in an interview with Moco 360.

This has nothing to do with rewarding staff and they are two seperate issues. Its ironic people are saying virtual isn't effective, for a few days, when you look at these scores and how they've declined over the last 15 or so years. MCPS and the BOE need to be held accountable. The county council needs to stop heavily funding a failing school system.

They’re not separate issues in that the end outcome this year (and last year) is that MCPS staff gets more vacation/snow days instead of providing instructional time, and educational outcomes are abysmal.

I would be fine with virtual learning for snow emergencies, but I’m just a parent. If McPS refuses to submit the virtual learning plan for weather to the state of Maryland the way other Maryland districts and the BoE won’t hold them accountable for what they promised to do in 2024-not sure what will help ensure that our students don’t get shortchanged instructional time and continue to fall further behind.

The only bright side to this legislation is that it greatly reduces the chance that MCPS would try to adopt virtual days.

You sound dim. I would much rather my child have virtual days of education rather than the current status quo of losing 5 school days this year.

I'm not happy about losing 5 days either, but virtual days are worse than nothing.

Show us the evidence that virtual learning has worse outcomes than providing no instruction at all. Because all you have is an opinion, and not a particularly informed one at that.

+1 This just sounds like MCPS staff who would rather just pocket their 5 extra snow days of vacation than ever be asked to teach during a day with inclement weather.

I'm sure they don't mind, but that's not the driving factor. The parents of high schoolers here are forgetting that younger kids exist. There's no good way to do virtual at the elementary level. Yes, some districts do it anyway, but most don't.

The parents of high schoolers here had elementary schoolers during covid so we actually know what we are talking about, unlike parents of kindergartners who had babies at the time. Virtual isn’t ideal for K and 1st, but for 2-5 it is totally possible to deliver instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On issue with virtual is if they ever do Code Orange and virtual then child care providers are open, are they to be expected to supervise virtual? I know they have done it before, but are they set up to do it now?

All they need is for the kids to have earbuds/headphones. The school has these to send home because they use them for standardized testing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On issue with virtual is if they ever do Code Orange and virtual then child care providers are open, are they to be expected to supervise virtual? I know they have done it before, but are they set up to do it now?

All they need is for the kids to have earbuds/headphones. The school has these to send home because they use them for standardized testing.

And by the way, our older kids not only did virtual in childcare settings with headphones, they also had to wear masks too!!!

[Anonymous]

JUNE 29TH or June 30th if they are closedf both days

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On issue with virtual is if they ever do Code Orange and virtual then child care providers are open, are they to be expected to supervise virtual? I know they have done it before, but are they set up to do it now?

All they need is for the kids to have earbuds/headphones. The school has these to send home because they use them for standardized testing.

And by the way, our older kids not only did virtual in childcare settings with headphones, they also had to wear masks too!!!

I am the PP. I know that they did it before, that is why I said "I know they have done it before". Also those of us with kindergarteners and 1st graders who used daycare had to have our kids wear masks starting at age 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds awful. So basically the Maryland legislature ok'ed MCPS kids getting only 175 days of instruction per year? Such a difference from Massachusetts which requires its school districts to schedule 185 days of school, to ensure that they get 180 with snow days.

But MCPS staff get more paid holidays, so I guess they're happy.

Exactly what do you think those children are learning in those last five hours of the last day before summer?

Zilch.

They aren't learning much because those days were not originally in the calendar and lots of teachers and students won't show up.

MCPS should have planned better. This proposed bill, even with the sunset.provision, sets a terrible precedent. It says to MCPS that they do not need to program the appropriate number of days into the school calendar because the General Assembly can sweep in and exempt them from the rules that every other district in the state is subject to. Sends a horrible message as literacy and math proficiency rates are in freefall.

They’re not learning anything in the last five hours of an original calendar day either.

I agree, there needs to be much better planning, but I don’t think we should kid ourselves that there’s any learning happening in the last week of an original school calendar even less so during make up days. My kids won’t be going their last day is the 18th.

By that standard we should just cancel the whole school year as every.time. we remove a week the week before it is "useless"

Right. Because that’s the exact same thing. 🙄

Do you not get the difference between a week that is planned in the original calendar and a make up week tacked on in the middle of the year? MCPS should include enough days in its calendar, and it didn't for two years in a row.

If the delegation wants to help, they should make MCPS go back to a 184 day calendar. But no - they are about letting MCPS abrogate its responsibility to educate.

In order to do that summer would be even shorter or breaks would be shortened or various holidays eliminated.

yes

Not going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This sounds awful. So basically the Maryland legislature ok'ed MCPS kids getting only 175 days of instruction per year? Such a difference from Massachusetts which requires its school districts to schedule 185 days of school, to ensure that they get 180 with snow days.

But MCPS staff get more paid holidays, so I guess they're happy.

A 175 day school year is just right. Not too short but it doesn't go on forever based on out of control situations like holidays and snow days. There a more religious holidays then 6+ years ago and some years have 5+ snow days. That said MC should replace the 1Q and 3Q grading days with multiple 1-1.5 hour early dismissals so not half days more like 3/4 days. If schools are closed 3 or more consecutive days because of a single emergency, the 3rd day onward should be virtual. If schools are closed (non-virtual) for 5 or more days, either Good Friday or Easter Monday (but not both) shall be allowed to be reclaimed. Schools should also be allowed to go virtual on election day since that is nobody's holiday.

Sure and let’s reduce McPS salaries accordingly to account for the fact that our kids don’t get 180 days of instructional time per year because you’ve decided it’s “just right” when the rest of America has 180 days. Because it is impossible that McPS could have included more than 1 snow day in the calendar (when neighboring Maryland school districts included 3), included makeup days in the calendar that it actually intended to use instead of these performative ones, and developed the virtual learning plan it promised to the BoE in 2024.

“Let’s?” Who are you again? Oh, right, nobody.

P.S. “The rest of America” doesn’t have 180 days. It varies by individual school district. Many are below 180. Oops!