Why does my kid's school have SO MANY 'professional days'?

[Anonymous]

What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

Teachers get training on how to deal with parents who have no clue about how education works or the best methods to teach YOUR kid.

I agree that it seems tedious right now but this is how the sausage is made. In normal years we have one day a month, and teachers do training while someone else is in charge of your kid.

The Wed off for kids (technically they should be doing self study) was for the schools to be cleaned. Now teachers do planning, call us back, email us, etc and do professional development. most school districts even IPL ones are doing this - the days vary. Fairfax is on Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

BTW depending on your child's age the amount of direct instruction is not equal to the hours they are in school.

[Anonymous]

Is it ITS? Because they have a million and think nothing of tossing away the children's instructional time and inconveniencing parents.

[Anonymous]

Just because the kid is not with your teacher at a particular moment does not mean that the teacher is not instructing another group of children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

Sounds unique to your child's school. My kid doesn't have professional days off.

Stop complaining on DCUM and write to your principal.

[Anonymous]

No matter what the calendar is, there are 180 school days (in a normal year). If there were fewer professional development days, there would be a longer summer break and some people would be happy and some would complain.

[Anonymous]

But now, you can do asynchronous lessons on pd days. So students lose a live class, but it still counts toward the 180 days. It's frustrating to watch my kids, who only have an hour of live classes a day, 4 days a week, have that live learning further reduced as our school takes advantage of this loop hole. Once a term, we go a full week w/o live classes but only two of those days are actual days off.

[Anonymous]

You'd think the "Professional Days" could be on Wednesdays, since teachers already have that day off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

BTW depending on your child's age the amount of direct instruction is not equal to the hours they are in school.

My kids used to go to school 40 hours per week. Now they go to school 16 hours per week. School, for students and teachers, is now like a part-time job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You'd think the "Professional Days" could be on Wednesdays, since teachers already have that day off.

I am really curious what job you have that is client facing 40 hours a week, since you seem to define anything else as "off".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

BTW depending on your child's age the amount of direct instruction is not equal to the hours they are in school.

My kids used to go to school 40 hours per week. Now they go to school 16 hours per week. School, for students and teachers, is now like a part-time job.

What school was 40 hours a week in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

Totally agree with you. I feel like these kids are never in school.

[Anonymous]

Just because a child is in the building does not mean they are getting direct instruction.

Right now our DL breaks are 5 min for the bathroom - why? 30 kids don't have to use the same bathroom its one kid using their toilet so you don't need 15 min.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does this even mean? What happens on "professional days"? My kids are barely getting any instruction as it is. Do we really need to cancel yet another day of school for a "professional day"? Can't they have their professional days during the six hours per day that my kids aren't in school?

Totally agree with you. I feel like these kids are never in school.

all this stuff should be canceled -- phony baloney "professional days," spring break, "asynchronous wednesdays." we shouldnt even have the summers off. not when our kids are barely ever in school. school has been a complete joke since last march.