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Anonymous wrote:I would prefer if they shortened the school year. The lost days are gone. There is no productive way to add more days at the end of the year. It is just performative

That would violate state law.

True, but Maryland should change that as Virginia did.

The reality is that lessons are based more on days than the number of hours. Eliminating days necessarily means missing lessons.

I don’t mind that when we’re talking about snow days that have been spent, personally. There’s not much value in tacking on to the end of the year and there are good reasons to respect teacher workdays. I’m sure others will disagree.

Then the alternative would extending the calendar from the start to avoid snow days leaving us below the minimum. But that isn't the path Taylor and the BoE took with next year's calendar. We only have one snow day built in. We should have 5 or 6.

+1. Why did they go in the opposite direction of what we needed? Very frustrating.

Because Taylor changed what would have been the first day of school to a transition day, and didn't replace it with another instructional day.

Ugh, why can’t they offer minimal instruction that day and count it as an instructional day? It’s crazy to use up a paid day for staff, open all of the schools, and run the buses, but not get to count it as an instructional day.

When they presented about this in a meeting I attended, before it was finalized, someone asked whether it would count as a day of school. They said they were asking the state if it would, and were hoping it would because so many students would attend (not just transitional grades but also EMLs, SPED students, etc.). The state must have said that school won’t count if all students don’t attend.

We have a friend in NC whose school system lets incoming kindergarteners come in for a few days in the spring and do sample lessons. Here in MoCo parents get looked at funny if they ask for so much as a 10 minute tour of the building with their kid before the chaotic open house in August. Come on people. We can do better.

When my now-senior was in MCPS kindergarten, they did a general kindergarten open house in the spring, as well as the meet-your-teacher one in the fall. Guess they’ve stopped that now, from the sound of it.

It was a regular school day but the current kindergarteners were given the day off, so the teachers could host the open house for next year’s kindergarten families. They could see the classrooms, talk with teachers, and get an overview of the curriculum. They’d also do on-the-spot registrations, and give people a chance to learn about/sign up for aftercare.

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Anonymous wrote:I would prefer if they shortened the school year. The lost days are gone. There is no productive way to add more days at the end of the year. It is just performative

That would violate state law.

True, but Maryland should change that as Virginia did.

The reality is that lessons are based more on days than the number of hours. Eliminating days necessarily means missing lessons.

I don’t mind that when we’re talking about snow days that have been spent, personally. There’s not much value in tacking on to the end of the year and there are good reasons to respect teacher workdays. I’m sure others will disagree.

Then the alternative would extending the calendar from the start to avoid snow days leaving us below the minimum. But that isn't the path Taylor and the BoE took with next year's calendar. We only have one snow day built in. We should have 5 or 6.

+1. Why did they go in the opposite direction of what we needed? Very frustrating.

Because Taylor changed what would have been the first day of school to a transition day, and didn't replace it with another instructional day.

Ugh, why can’t they offer minimal instruction that day and count it as an instructional day? It’s crazy to use up a paid day for staff, open all of the schools, and run the buses, but not get to count it as an instructional day.

When they presented about this in a meeting I attended, before it was finalized, someone asked whether it would count as a day of school. They said they were asking the state if it would, and were hoping it would because so many students would attend (not just transitional grades but also EMLs, SPED students, etc.). The state must have said that school won’t count if all students don’t attend.

We have a friend in NC whose school system lets incoming kindergarteners come in for a few days in the spring and do sample lessons. Here in MoCo parents get looked at funny if they ask for so much as a 10 minute tour of the building with their kid before the chaotic open house in August. Come on people. We can do better.

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Anonymous wrote:Here's Prince George's calendar. They are subject to the same BRUTAL Maryland law but they make it the best possible. Even with the same Tuesday, August 26 start day it takes 3 cancelations to get to June 17 where as MC starts with June 17 and would go into the 4th week of June with 3 cancelations.

Huh? In what sense does MCPS start with June 17? The original last day of school was June 13 (Friday). The third snow day extended that to June 16 (Monday). We will need at least one more makeup day for this week's snow day, and potentially one or two more for next week, but that still would not go into the 4th week of June.