Anonymous wrote:I will never understand why school starts before September 1. What a stupid system to start school in August. And why does school start when it is hot as hell and when people take vacations?

People can plan their vacations around school, just like they plan it around holidays. There is this thing called free will. You are actively making a choice to do this, which speaks to your personal priorities.

Anonymous wrote:If you’re in public school sure. That doesn’t fly in most private schools.

At our private people actively state this is why they are in private. They get the assignments from the teachers and hire zoom tutors. The kids stay caught up.

Anonymous wrote:And the already overworked teachers are now spending time catching these vacationers up.

I start teaching my AP classes on day 1. If you miss the first week of school, you missed 50% of the material for our first test. I receive emails every year from parents who expect me to stay after to tutor their kids or excuse them from the first test. It’s aggravating, especially because these are unexcused absences.

I don’t expect to get sympathy on DCUM, but hopefully a few “who cares?” posters can learn that the teachers who have to work harder care.

You have my sympathy. I can’t believe all these parents who are saying “Because it’s weeeeiiird!” My 11th grader would not be ok with missing the first few days of school. I don’t even like pulling her out for an occasional dr appt.

We attend a high SES high school in Maryland and notice absences before big breaks and long weekends. So, the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The days before and after winter break. A few days after a long weekend, especially if there's an adjacent early release.

Don't really notice absences at the beginning or end of the year.

We will be gone early for Thanksgiving. It's fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And the already overworked teachers are now spending time catching these vacationers up.

I start teaching my AP classes on day 1. If you miss the first week of school, you missed 50% of the material for our first test. I receive emails every year from parents who expect me to stay after to tutor their kids or excuse them from the first test. It’s aggravating, especially because these are unexcused absences.

I don’t expect to get sympathy on DCUM, but hopefully a few “who cares?” posters can learn that the teachers who have to work harder care.

You don’t “have” to work harder. Let them bomb the first test.

I stick to my standards. Even if I refuse to add tutoring sessions or provide make-up work, I still have to spend time answering emails. Then I have to answer the follow-up emails after the parents reached out to admin because I’m being unreasonable. (No, I’m just following admin’s published policy, the same one they told me I must follow during our PD week. Then, week 1 when a policy is challenged, the same admin tell me to ignore it.) So even if I let them bomb that first test, I still have to document and justify everything. That also takes time and patience, two things that are always in short supply in a high school.

Anonymous wrote:I will never understand why school starts before September 1. What a stupid system to start school in August. And why does school start when it is hot as hell and when people take vacations?

We can’t take vacations in august now which is ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:We all learned that no one really cares when Covid hit. I’ll never prioritize attendance again like I used to. We will go on family trips when we want because it’s cheaper and family is more important that a mundane assignment a teacher is no doubt recycling from teachers pay teachers. FCPS sucks.

We were in LCPS and my kids came home with so many of those stupid worksheets. I can’t tell you how many errors I found in them just at a casual glance. Such a joke!

I will never understand why school starts before September 1. What a stupid system to start school in August. And why does school start when it is hot as hell and when people take vacations?

Anonymous wrote:My HS freshman has her first two homework yesterday. Next week has two quizzes, and one more the day after they return from Labor Day break. I have heard her friends also talk about how quizzes are starting so early.

Does the public want to raise the standards? Or lower them?

I can’t keep up.

My HS freshman has her first two homework yesterday. Next week has two quizzes, and one more the day after they return from Labor Day break. I have heard her friends also talk about how quizzes are starting so early.

Anonymous wrote:And the already overworked teachers are now spending time catching these vacationers up.

I start teaching my AP classes on day 1. If you miss the first week of school, you missed 50% of the material for our first test. I receive emails every year from parents who expect me to stay after to tutor their kids or excuse them from the first test. It’s aggravating, especially because these are unexcused absences.

I don’t expect to get sympathy on DCUM, but hopefully a few “who cares?” posters can learn that the teachers who have to work harder care.

You don’t “have” to work harder. Let them bomb the first test.

And the already overworked teachers are now spending time catching these vacationers up.

I start teaching my AP classes on day 1. If you miss the first week of school, you missed 50% of the material for our first test. I receive emails every year from parents who expect me to stay after to tutor their kids or excuse them from the first test. It’s aggravating, especially because these are unexcused absences.

I don’t expect to get sympathy on DCUM, but hopefully a few “who cares?” posters can learn that the teachers who have to work harder care.

My kids would be pissed to miss the first week of school. It’s the most social time to make new friends, weather is good, lots of after school hangouts since there isn’t much work yet. Fall sports definitely wouldn’t allow for that either.

That being said, I have taken my kids out of school for a trip and I figure they almost get sick so this is instead of sick days that most kids take.

Anonymous wrote:Because it's weird to have school in August!

This. I hate that we start two weeks before Labor Day now and have completely adjusted the school year to accommodate spring standardized testing.

Anonymous wrote:If you’re in public school sure. That doesn’t fly in most private schools.

What a joke.This is absolutely not true.