Amen - people are so extra!

Anonymous wrote:God what a waste of a school system. MCPS doesn’t seem to educate kids at all.

Keep telling yourself that.

There were half days when we were kids. Stop being so dramatic.

School needs to start mid Aug. That would give enough time for 1 week for thanksgiving, 2 weeks for winter, 1 week for spring break as well as religious observances.

Summer break is 10-11 weeks. It's too long. We need to steal some time from summer and reallocate it to the other break weeks.

God what a waste of a school system. MCPS doesn’t seem to educate kids at all.

I agree. Willing to shorten spring break to 5 days off, remove the other ethnic holiday days off that only a tiny minority recognize. More people celebrate Thanksgiving than those ethnic holidays.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were small, even Wednesday was a full day. Then it changed to 1/2 day Wednesday. Now it is even less school time. People are always going to want more. 10 years from now we will have the Friday before and Monday after off too.

I personally would be okay with full days of school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Or no school on those days. The problem is the half days create a massive incentive for students and staff to not show up and go out of town.

This. When we had full days M and T, our kids were always there. Since we went to half days, we just skip because my kids tell us that absolutely nothing happens in half days (especially in middle and high school where the class periods are 20 minutes). It’s all driven by the stupid state 180 day rule. It’s a “we pretend to teach and you pretend to attend” day to meet the state requirement, as far as I can tell.

They used to have the two half days a couple weeks earlier around Veterans Day, then they moved them to Thanksgiving week, so it's the same number of days either way.

The whole week is effectively a waste now. That’s what’s efficient about it - moving the half days just spreads the pain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were small, even Wednesday was a full day. Then it changed to 1/2 day Wednesday. Now it is even less school time. People are always going to want more. 10 years from now we will have the Friday before and Monday after off too.

I personally would be okay with full days of school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Or no school on those days. The problem is the half days create a massive incentive for students and staff to not show up and go out of town.

This. When we had full days M and T, our kids were always there. Since we went to half days, we just skip because my kids tell us that absolutely nothing happens in half days (especially in middle and high school where the class periods are 20 minutes). It’s all driven by the stupid state 180 day rule. It’s a “we pretend to teach and you pretend to attend” day to meet the state requirement, as far as I can tell.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were small, even Wednesday was a full day. Then it changed to 1/2 day Wednesday. Now it is even less school time. People are always going to want more. 10 years from now we will have the Friday before and Monday after off too.

I personally would be okay with full days of school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Or no school on those days. The problem is the half days create a massive incentive for students and staff to not show up and go out of town.

I agree. It has to be all or nothing. Pick one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were small, even Wednesday was a full day. Then it changed to 1/2 day Wednesday. Now it is even less school time. People are always going to want more. 10 years from now we will have the Friday before and Monday after off too.

I personally would be okay with full days of school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Or no school on those days. The problem is the half days create a massive incentive for students and staff to not show up and go out of town.

I think you're right. The half-day is a half-assed compromise that doesn't give anyone the certainty of whether the school system is taking those as serious instructional days or not. MCPS should decide one way or another and communicate those expectations by either being fully open or closed.

Anonymous wrote:When my kids were small, even Wednesday was a full day. Then it changed to 1/2 day Wednesday. Now it is even less school time. People are always going to want more. 10 years from now we will have the Friday before and Monday after off too.

I personally would be okay with full days of school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Or no school on those days. The problem is the half days create a massive incentive for students and staff to not show up and go out of town.

When my kids were small, even Wednesday was a full day. Then it changed to 1/2 day Wednesday. Now it is even less school time. People are always going to want more. 10 years from now we will have the Friday before and Monday after off too.

Didn't you just put on a movie while ostensibly telling kids to catch up on their homework? That's what my kids' teachers did.

There was a long thread about this before the week of Thanksgiving. Staff absences were also very high. No one is going to take two early release days seriously.

And do two full parent days during normal school hours. Or do one long day of parent conferences and move the October PD day to Tuesday.

The number of students at my school who were “sick” last Monday and Tuesday indicates that families want that full week off. It is nearly impossible to use either of those days for anything other than practice/prep assignments because of the high number of absent students.

Plus, we had several colleagues who were out with no sub on Tuesday so there was a coverage issue.