Reply to How to fit school days into Gov Larry Hogan's ridiculous policy on school start and stop dates

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Reply to "How to fit school days into Gov Larry Hogan's ridiculous policy on school start and stop dates"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Teachers do not get paid in summer in MoCo

Teachers DO work more than 8 hours a day / every day

If parking lots are empty on teacher work days, that is because the union negotiated that teachers be able to work from home on those days- not because they are not working

Having all teacher planning and professional development occur in summer would be ineffective. You can't anticipate in August the changes you need to make to your lesson plans in February... planning time, collaboration with colleagues, using data from current students to drive the next unit- teachers need time periodically to reflect and plan.

School is not daycare

[/quote]

Teachers have the week between Christmas and New Years and the week of Spring break to have professional in service days in addition to summer.  There are 261 non-weekend days in a year.   Most of us get 10 federal holidays a year and do not get a week off at Christmas and a week off in March.  Accounting for the 9 federal holidays (July 4 is not in teh school year), that leaves 252 weekdays a year.  Take off 180 days for school and there are still 71 week days.  The teachers can have their professional days on those 71 week days.  That's typically 5 days at Christmas, 5 days for Spring break and 61 days spread across the summer.  They need to handle their in-service days on those days.  And if the issue is the pay, then the union needs to negotiate an appropriate payment level to compensate the teachers.  However, that is a discussion outside the scheduling of the school year.   There are 185 days between 4 Sep 2018 and 14 Jun 2019 that are not any of the federal holidays, the week between Christmas and New Year and one week for spring break.  There should not be a problem fitting in 180 days of school.  There's even some leeway if you need snow days (up to 5).  [/quote]

False, according to the following MCPS e-mail snippet:

[quote]
Next year, we will have even fewer days to work with than in years past to accommodate our instructional traditions, such as having 184 instructional days, and our non-instructional traditions, such as a full week for Spring Break.  As we design next year’s calendar, we start with several requirements from the State:

September 4–June 14: the permissible time frame for instruction
180: the minimum number of instructional days required
15: the number of State mandated days that schools must be closed
3: the number of snow make-up days required at the end of the year (before June 14)

[b]Once the calendar accounts for these State required elements, a total of six days remain that can be programmed for other, non-required educational or operational priorities, such as Spring Break or instructional days above the state minimum of 180. How to allocate these days among our multiple calendar priorities is our challenge.[/b]
[/quote]

QED. You have been defeated.[/quote]

You don't have to put the 3 make-up days at the end of year like MCPS is doing. The state NEVER said, MCPS chose to use that wording because that is what they are choosing to do.  Why are they ending school on June 11 when school doesn't needs to be done until June 14?  You can end school on June 14th, have 183 days on the calendar and put those 3 days BACK into the school calendar and use them as snow make-up days.  That is what most districts do.

Hogan has already said if a bill came to his desk asking for President's Day and Easter Monday to be used for make-up days, he would.  
[/quote]

Howard County has President's Day as it's first snow make-up day this year.  So I guess he signed it?  [/quote]

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