Reply to How DO we get the calendar changed?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Now the school board is floating the idea of removing Veterans Day and IP Day next year and shifting early release to Fridays. At this point, it feels like they’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Families have slogged through a year of chopped‑up weeks, pointless closures, and “professional days” that seem to appear out of thin air - and this is the grand solution?

Let’s be honest: this isn’t meaningful reform. It’s tokenism dressed up as “responsiveness,” a quick political talking point they can wave around while avoiding the real conversation about how dysfunctional the calendar has become. Scrapping two holidays and shuffling early release to Fridays doesn’t fix anything. It’s cosmetic, short‑term, and designed to look like action without actually requiring any.

If they want credibility, they need to stop playing calendar whack‑a‑mole and address the structural mess they’ve created. Families deserve a school year that isn’t a patchwork of interruptions. Students deserve instructional time that isn’t constantly carved up. And the board needs to stop pretending that these tiny, performative tweaks count as leadership.[/quote]

Yes, they are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. And also, there was a reason they moved the elementary early release days from Mondays to Wednesdays: Too many staff took the Mondays off. Do they not expect that same problem with Fridays?[/quote]

Stop the early release days all together.  Those days are a total waste.  Of the 4.5 hours - 1 hour is lunch and recess.  Between morning mtg and transitions it is about an hour of learning and that is if the teacher uses it to teach.  Not all do.  It is a joke of a day.

Our school does “family time”.  Which is a waste.  At least cancel recess and specials and actually teach something in the 4.5 hours they have.  Gah.[/quote]

Yes at a minimum recess should be out of the schedule on these days. Also, at both the center and base school, the schools have adjusted so that all lunches every day will be done before the 3hr early release time. That means both schools have the first lunch time start 1 hr 15 min after the start of the school day. For the upper grades, they seem to be able to make this work, but my 2nd grader has that lunch time and it seems like the first hour of school largely gets wasted because between morning meeting and need for transition to lunch time the kids only have about 20-30 min for an actual lesson despite being 75 min of school time.

Like a different poster mentioned, our base school also uses the 3 hr early releases for specials, recess, lunch, and the independent work time.

It's also hard to understand why all this extra planning time is needed when the kids are now taking mostly* computer tests (no grading time required) and using the same packaged curriculum. If it felt like these days were accomplishing improvements in the classroom, I believe less parents would be upset.

*technically their weekly 5 word spelling tests are on paper.[/quote]

My AAP kid has mainly paper assignments and tests. All of which get graded. The teacher writes meaningful comments on their projects and homework. Their teacher gives additional tests beyond the VA standards tests. Prep is definitely needed for that. I think the school leadership is the problem. This kid’s school seems to have high expectations of the teachers and gives them proper support. My other kid’s principal is disengaged and doesn’t know what’s going on in the classrooms. The teacher quality varies a ton. More ineffective than not. The school leadership doesn’t give the teachers adequate support. I’ve lobbied for this and given ideas because my kid’s education is affected. But they don’t do anything. We are waiting until my kid can hopefully switch schools. The good teachers and schools deserve prep time. The ineffective ones need bigger solutions.[/quote]

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