Reply to Earlier start date proposed for MCPS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a teacher in MCPS. I truly don't understand this. For all the years I've attended and worked in MCPS, I have heard that MCPS only closes for religious holidays if they present an operational issue. In this situation, they are clearly closing due to religious reasons, not operational reasons.

Now the Board is changing its tune and saying that they will close school for students due to a religious holiday, but still make it a working day for staff. I don't celebrate the holiday in question, so I have no problem going to work on that day.  But now we're potentially changing the start date to acknowledge a religious holiday?

The holiday in question does not fall on the same day during each calendar year. So how is the Board going to handle this in the following years?

There was a survey sent out by MCEA asking teachers to rank their choices for the 2016-2017 calendar year. The overwhelming reaction from teachers in MCPS was that it won't matter what teachers think. The Board didn't seem to care about what teachers thought about bell times or final exams, so why waste our time filling out yet another survey? But for those interested, here were the options from which to choose...

Option A - add an additional  professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and bump the last instructional day to Friday 6/16, and the last professional day to Monday 6/19
 	Option B - add an additional professional day on 9/12 at a cost of $7 million, and add back in an instructional day on Monday 4/10
 	Option C - swap a professional day to 9/12 by removing one of the end-of-marking period grading days
 	Option D - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, with the first instruction day being moved up to Friday 8/26
 	Option E - swap a professional day to 9/12 by decreasing the number of pre-service days, but avoid starting school on a Friday by moving up pre-service to Thurs 8/18, the first instruction day Wed. 8/24, and the final professional day to Tues. 6/13

In my opinion, they all suck. We need 5 professional days at the beginning of the year (at least in elementary to set up rooms), and we need the professional days at the end of the marking periods for grading and reporting. If the Board wants to add a professional day, that's fine by me. But do not remove existing professional days for religious reasons.

Please contact the Board this weekend if you disagree with their decision.  They don't listen to teachers, but they will (?) listen to parents.

[/quote]

Thank you, MCPS teacher, for sharing this helpful information.  Sounds like "None of the above" was a needed option![/quote]

I also don't think the Board will listen to teachers, but I responded to the survey. Our school's EFR and union rep both ran around trying to get everyone who hadn't responded yet to give their preferences.  Judging from informal discussion at the photocopiers, no one wants to lose a pre-service or grading day for obvious reasons. We're all stressed already and the thought of last year being even a little more crunched for time is very discouraging.

I'd like to see an option F: Allow teachers to select one day between July 1 and the start of pre-service to work on our rooms or cohort plan. Pay us at our contract rate for that day. Many teachers will not use it so it would be less expensive than $7 mil.[/quote]

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