Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't this an MCPS-wide thing, not an individual school thing, so shouldn't there be information out from Central Office by now on this? Schools can't decide on their own what times the buses run, can they?

The buses would run at the same times they run on regular school days. That's one of the points of the transition day, to get a practice day for the buses.

Note that wasn’t a point as the buses have always been practicing the routes in the days before school began and the Thursday transition half day also included bus service just like a regular school day.

What Thursday transition half-day? We have definitely never had that before at our elementary school.

Previously the transition day was just for MS and HS. Which made sense because they were entering bigger schools, transition classes throughout the day, maybe walking or getting on the bus alone, etc.

Now they’ve added the K and the 3rd graders at the couple of 3-5 schools. Mostly because they ditched the K orientation day in Spring because it required the current K students to be out of the building, plus well it was a regular school day for everyone else.

Most people I know have no idea why this needed to become a full day and why it needed to move to Monday.

Our school still has K orientation. They hire subs for the kindergarten classes and have the regular teachers run orientation.

The reason they did this is that Taylor liked it from his old school system.

But where is Orientation held if the kindergarten students are in their class? Like is it in the morning in the Cafeteria?

K teacher here: transition day is for K, 3rd, 6th, 9th, AND any students who are new to the school. We're planning for at least some students in each grade to show up. It's a full regular day. For K, we're planning to do all the new to school things like touring the school, practicing the lunch line, checking out the bathrooms, going over routines, etc. Our students will also "sample" each of the specials. It's been suggested that if we have time, we might get a jump on beginning of the year baseline assessments.

The move to Monday, I think, is a response to the legitimate concern that having it on Friday would take away one of the much-needed preservice days teachers use to prep their classroom and plan.

Anonymous wrote:I'm curious when my elementary school will hold its open house/meet the teacher. It's usually on the Friday before school starts. Will they move it to Monday?

Ours already announced it for Monday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't this an MCPS-wide thing, not an individual school thing, so shouldn't there be information out from Central Office by now on this? Schools can't decide on their own what times the buses run, can they?

The buses would run at the same times they run on regular school days. That's one of the points of the transition day, to get a practice day for the buses.

Note that wasn’t a point as the buses have always been practicing the routes in the days before school began and the Thursday transition half day also included bus service just like a regular school day.

What Thursday transition half-day? We have definitely never had that before at our elementary school.

Previously the transition day was just for MS and HS. Which made sense because they were entering bigger schools, transition classes throughout the day, maybe walking or getting on the bus alone, etc.

Now they’ve added the K and the 3rd graders at the couple of 3-5 schools. Mostly because they ditched the K orientation day in Spring because it required the current K students to be out of the building, plus well it was a regular school day for everyone else.

Most people I know have no idea why this needed to become a full day and why it needed to move to Monday.

Our school still has K orientation. They hire subs for the kindergarten classes and have the regular teachers run orientation.

The reason they did this is that Taylor liked it from his old school system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is going to be a complete mess with kids at our school. We have a ton of non English speaking families who will all come to the bus stop on Monday and then realize they can't get on. Such a dumb idea. And then they didn't do enough communication to everyone before school was out about it.
I will be taking a day off as planned as my kids aren't in the transition grades.

How is that even going to work at the bus stops since kids in older grades who are new to the school can also attend-- you can't really expect bus drivers to enforce who's allowed to get on and who can't, can you?

Correct, all kids will be able to get on the bus.

Anonymous wrote:This is going to be a complete mess with kids at our school. We have a ton of non English speaking families who will all come to the bus stop on Monday and then realize they can't get on. Such a dumb idea. And then they didn't do enough communication to everyone before school was out about it.
I will be taking a day off as planned as my kids aren't in the transition grades.

Teacher here- we have already been told that we have to babysit any child who shows up. I wish this was half a day- a whole day is a long time of non- instructional time

Anonymous wrote:This is going to be a complete mess with kids at our school. We have a ton of non English speaking families who will all come to the bus stop on Monday and then realize they can't get on. Such a dumb idea. And then they didn't do enough communication to everyone before school was out about it.
I will be taking a day off as planned as my kids aren't in the transition grades.

How is that even going to work at the bus stops since kids in older grades who are new to the school can also attend-- you can't really expect bus drivers to enforce who's allowed to get on and who can't, can you?

This is going to be a complete mess with kids at our school. We have a ton of non English speaking families who will all come to the bus stop on Monday and then realize they can't get on. Such a dumb idea. And then they didn't do enough communication to everyone before school was out about it.
I will be taking a day off as planned as my kids aren't in the transition grades.

I'm curious when my elementary school will hold its open house/meet the teacher. It's usually on the Friday before school starts. Will they move it to Monday?

It will be personalized to what each school wants to do. Most schools won’t finalize decisions until the second leadership week.

Anonymous wrote:Just heard that KAH at our school will not be operating on the 25th. Which means no before or aftercare for kindergarteners and no day-off care for older kids. So parents are going to have to take that day off work, I guess? Is MCPS just waiting to announce this until August? Some parents need more time to prepare than that...

That should be on KAH to announce their schedule. MCPS has already announced that the transition day for certain grades/students is the 25th and that school starts for everyone on the 26th.

Just heard that KAH at our school will not be operating on the 25th. Which means no before or aftercare for kindergarteners and no day-off care for older kids. So parents are going to have to take that day off work, I guess? Is MCPS just waiting to announce this until August? Some parents need more time to prepare than that...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't this an MCPS-wide thing, not an individual school thing, so shouldn't there be information out from Central Office by now on this? Schools can't decide on their own what times the buses run, can they?

The buses would run at the same times they run on regular school days. That's one of the points of the transition day, to get a practice day for the buses.

Note that wasn’t a point as the buses have always been practicing the routes in the days before school began and the Thursday transition half day also included bus service just like a regular school day.

Not the elementary school bus routes. This will be the first year for that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't this an MCPS-wide thing, not an individual school thing, so shouldn't there be information out from Central Office by now on this? Schools can't decide on their own what times the buses run, can they?

The buses would run at the same times they run on regular school days. That's one of the points of the transition day, to get a practice day for the buses.

Note that wasn’t a point as the buses have always been practicing the routes in the days before school began and the Thursday transition half day also included bus service just like a regular school day.

What Thursday transition half-day? We have definitely never had that before at our elementary school.

Previously the transition day was just for MS and HS. Which made sense because they were entering bigger schools, transition classes throughout the day, maybe walking or getting on the bus alone, etc.

Now they’ve added the K and the 3rd graders at the couple of 3-5 schools. Mostly because they ditched the K orientation day in Spring because it required the current K students to be out of the building, plus well it was a regular school day for everyone else.

Most people I know have no idea why this needed to become a full day and why it needed to move to Monday.

Oh it also was for new students. So like anyone who had moved into the district or transferred.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn't this an MCPS-wide thing, not an individual school thing, so shouldn't there be information out from Central Office by now on this? Schools can't decide on their own what times the buses run, can they?

The buses would run at the same times they run on regular school days. That's one of the points of the transition day, to get a practice day for the buses.

Note that wasn’t a point as the buses have always been practicing the routes in the days before school began and the Thursday transition half day also included bus service just like a regular school day.

What Thursday transition half-day? We have definitely never had that before at our elementary school.

Previously the transition day was just for MS and HS. Which made sense because they were entering bigger schools, transition classes throughout the day, maybe walking or getting on the bus alone, etc.

Now they’ve added the K and the 3rd graders at the couple of 3-5 schools. Mostly because they ditched the K orientation day in Spring because it required the current K students to be out of the building, plus well it was a regular school day for everyone else.

Most people I know have no idea why this needed to become a full day and why it needed to move to Monday.