Ferebee email re adding school days because of snow
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
How in the world did you get 100% of families to come in? What if a family couldn’t/didn’t want to? |
Anonymous
|
I cannot believe they cancelled PTC and kept the wellness day. The union has an absolute chokehold on this district and it’s driving more and more parents to private.
Why didn’t they preemptively shift one of the wellness days to the two snow days we had off and keep PTC?? We get NO communication about how our ES kid is doing as it is. PTC was the one chance to do that and you know the teacher isn’t going to offer any other ad hoc conferences or communications. |
Anonymous
I truly feel like parents like this must actually hate unions and teachers because you cannot be this daft. The wellness day is in our (teacher’s) contract. If DCPS were to take it they would be blatantly breaking the contract and if teachers were to give it up it would show DCPS they can take whatever from us. Which there is a precedent for. The union (teachers) has NO say whatsoever on what day DCPS took. If this is real I find it highly interesting how people really believe the Union is that powerful or that DCPS ‘cares’ for its teachers so much that they are ‘suffocating’ because of teachers. If this were true, DCPS would be getting much better results academically. |
Anonymous
I mean if you can’t handle teachers having a day off, peace. DCPS doesn’t care about your demographic anyway. We found out in the middle of class at 11:47 on a Wednesday. If you think teachers had any say, you don’t understand DCPS. |
Anonymous
This is a complete surprise since they didn't make up the two snow days in 2024 or 2 of the 3 in 2025. I wonder if someone claimed that Ferebee broke the law the last two years despite going based on hours in terms of makeup. They really need to adjust the DC Municipal Regulations law to an equivalent number of hours since the school year already goes a week long. |
Anonymous
Use April 6 (currently a records and PD combo day). Eliminate the PD half and hold a half day of school. Spring break is the following week. Some parents might not like them but between a specific number of days and an already long year they need to either change the requirement to hours or deal with a rare half day. Other places like Fairfax have a few half days each year so people should lose their mind for 1 or 2. |
Anonymous
Does DCPS care about any demographic? Does the teachers’ union? And why do teachers say they have no say in these situations when it is their union? |
Anonymous
Have you tried emailing your child's teacher and requesting a conference/meeting? I am a ES teacher, we send out weekly email updates. We are expected to be professionals and make time when parents have questions or concerns. I think all of us reach our proactively and establish relationships with students and parents at the beginning of the year. At my school there is definitely the consensus that we are all on the same teacher as our student's parents. What school is it? |
Anonymous
If you think the teacher’s union is so evil, stay at your non-unionized charter school or if you are at a DCPS school -what a weird take. The wellness day is something teachers agreed to prior to any kind of weather events, meaning this is separate from a snow day. Can we use our critical thinking skills? It’s interesting, charter schools also closed -they closed during Covid too -with no union present. Funny how some of you are quick to blame workers and not the management. Makes me think it’s just 1-2 people trolling because there’s no way multiple people could be this dumb. |
Anonymous
I am not the PP, but it actually doesn't seem impossible to me that DCPS could have retained the flexibility to change one of the 3 snow days into the teachers' wellness day (provided that they weren't requiring them to do any work); I suspect that if the contract didn't give them that flexibility, then the next one will. Assuming that they weren't working any of those days, why couldn't one be designated as the wellness day? They got the days off... Maybe I'm missing something? |
Anonymous
Since it was an emergency event they could not have have just randomly decided to make it a wellness day -despite DCPS often being a tumultuous place to work even they cannot just decide to change the date of the wellness day with zero notice. For example I have already planned to do something with my family that day (the actual wellness day). Also let’s be honest, it’s not much of a wellness day to be anxious about what DCPS is deciding to do (as you know). To note some teachers would have been happy to take the wellness day, however it would have had to be put to a vote and there was not enough time for all of that. They could have just stuck to the plan which was to tack those days on at the end of the year. They did not have to take PTC and yet DCPS chose to. Since you were kind, I hope this explanation makes sense. |
Anonymous
1. Yes, but I won’t derail the thread discussing it. They are fairly open about it. 2. The teacher’s union is not a student or parent union so I’m not sure who you want them to prioritize. Spare us the whole teaching is a calling and we should die on the altar of students. It’s a job. 3. Teachers say they have no say because in these decisions because DCPS is not the union. Chancellor is not part of the WTU. Central office is not part of the WTU. Principals are not part of the WTU. They didn’t ask teachers what we wanted so how could we even have a say? |
Anonymous
It’s also worth noting that the wellness day was intentionally scheduled for March, a historically long feeling month without breaks. I suspect they wanted to make a quick decision and since it’s in the contract it would have taken longer to negotiate, and as others mentioned, some teachers might not have agreed to give it up. For what it’s worth, there are a lot of teachers I hear about lamenting the loss of conference day because there is still an expectation to meet/call/email, just now on our own time. |
Anonymous
One of them was tacked on to the end. They should have chosen April 6 as the other day since it is in the last week before spring break and grading can be done on the adjacent weekend or during free times. The now last day for students is June 18 right before a 3-day weekend from Juneteenth. They now have a strange staff end date of Monday, June 22. They should make June 18 a half student day and full staff day. Waive the 2 half PD days after the 3rd and 4th quarters. |
Anonymous
Do teachers have any say in what the union does? Some teachers seem to be saying they would prefer one thing but the union won’t allow it. |