Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

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Anonymous wrote:The email adding April 15 was intentionally vague because they’re counting on this bill passing. They won’t officially say anything until the outcome is clear

There was nothing vague about the email. it clearly said school ends June 26

It said they recently announced last day would be June 25. But they’re applying waiver to avoid going to the last week of June. Nothing about the school will definitely end on June 26.

This. My understanding is that the Senate will not take up the legislation changing the 180 requirement to and/or.
So that option is dead. The new plan is showing a good faith effort to add some instructional days (April 15) and asking MDSE to waive the rest. The intel I heard was pretty confident that would happen and the last day would be June 18. The note was cryptic in that it said “watch for another update before spring break” which is when they are hoping to finalize this plan B.

I guess worst case scenario is that they would have to add one more day to get waiver and end school by June 22.

MSDE already rejected a waiver from MCPS that only had two make up days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The email adding April 15 was intentionally vague because they’re counting on this bill passing. They won’t officially say anything until the outcome is clear

There was nothing vague about the email. it clearly said school ends June 26

As much as I don’t want to go until June 26th, mcps should have some consequences for their stupidity and lack of planning.

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The email adding April 15 was intentionally vague because they’re counting on this bill passing. They won’t officially say anything until the outcome is clear

There was nothing vague about the email. it clearly said school ends June 26

It said they recently announced last day would be June 25. But they’re applying waiver to avoid going to the last week of June. Nothing about the school will definitely end on June 26.

This. My understanding is that the Senate will not take up the legislation changing the 180 requirement to and/or.
So that option is dead. The new plan is showing a good faith effort to add some instructional days (April 15) and asking MDSE to waive the rest. The intel I heard was pretty confident that would happen and the last day would be June 18. The note was cryptic in that it said “watch for another update before spring break” which is when they are hoping to finalize this plan B.

I guess worst case scenario is that they would have to add one more day to get waiver and end school by June 22.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The email adding April 15 was intentionally vague because they’re counting on this bill passing. They won’t officially say anything until the outcome is clear

There was nothing vague about the email. it clearly said school ends June 26

It said they recently announced last day would be June 25. But they’re applying waiver to avoid going to the last week of June. Nothing about the school will definitely end on June 26.

This. My understanding is that the Senate will not take up the legislation changing the 180 requirement to and/or.
So that option is dead. The new plan is showing a good faith effort to add some instructional days (April 15) and asking MDSE to waive the rest. The intel I heard was pretty confident that would happen and the last day would be June 18. The note was cryptic in that it said “watch for another update before spring break” which is when they are hoping to finalize this plan B.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The email adding April 15 was intentionally vague because they’re counting on this bill passing. They won’t officially say anything until the outcome is clear

There was nothing vague about the email. it clearly said school ends June 26

It said they recently announced last day would be June 25. But they’re applying waiver to avoid going to the last week of June. Nothing about the school will definitely end on June 26.

Anonymous wrote:The email adding April 15 was intentionally vague because they’re counting on this bill passing. They won’t officially say anything until the outcome is clear

There was nothing vague about the email. it clearly said school ends June 26

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No chance they open the week of 6/22. Staffing will be low, attendance will be low, and cost to do all of this will be high. Remember, 6/23 is election day (Tuesday no school), so opening only for Monday makes no sense (in their eyes).

They had several options to avoid it.

We had half days on Monday/Tuesday last year.

+1 yes poor planning does cost money, if there weren't consequences there would be no incentive to plan better

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Starting a week earlier costs money too, so either way the more days that must be held the more money that must be spent to open the schools.

Everything costs money if you're intent on providing 180 days of instructional time as the law requires. Massachussetts schedules 185 days thinking that snow days will knock out some and they'll end up with 180. MCPS schedules 181 and looks surprised if it snows, and gets upset and accuses us of not caring about the lives of children if someone suggests they open 7 days after a snowstorm because there's ice on the ground someone in MoCo.

MCPS can not continue to close days after other school districts in the area open, and also schedule only 1 snow day. It's screwing out kids out of many instructional days per year, and meanwhile 2/3 of MCPS students can't do math at grade level and 1/2 can't read at grade level.

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Anonymous wrote:It's HB 1084 and was referred to the Senate committee on 2/27

Yes, we know, but has anyone heard anything from our state senators or anyone else knowledgeable regarding the outlook and timing for this in the Senate?

It is not scheduled for a hearing for another two weeks, so will not be resolved anytime soon: https://legiscan.com/MD/bill/HB1084/2026

Does anyone know if this timeline means the Senate is likely intentionally slow-walking it and it's not going to pass? Or would they just not have a hearing at all if they wanted to kill it?

I sure hope that's the case. MCPS should not be let off the hook for its terrible planning.

Keeping schools open an extra week will cost $$$. Budget is already tight

That’s in MCPS. They should have incorporated more snow days into the calendar like they used to, and used the spring contingency days. And regardless, with a $3.4+B budget, this is going to be rounding error for them.

They could have NOT had a transition day and they will ACTUALLY use April 15 which nobody will be upset about but there is no more desirable room to add snow days. Summer already was planned to start almost week later then last year due to various holidays. Between holidays, grading days and bad weather there isn't enough room for 180 days with a full summer. Maryland schools already lack adequate break time during the school year, shortening that even more or shortening summer is awful! As long as they meet for enough hours which is more than most states require they will be fine. There is no shortchanging that is worse than any other state!

Ha ha ha!

I don't know what's so funny here since it is true! I'm guessing you want a short summer and or little breaks during the school year!

Both. Why would either be advantageous?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's HB 1084 and was referred to the Senate committee on 2/27

Yes, we know, but has anyone heard anything from our state senators or anyone else knowledgeable regarding the outlook and timing for this in the Senate?

It is not scheduled for a hearing for another two weeks, so will not be resolved anytime soon: https://legiscan.com/MD/bill/HB1084/2026

Does anyone know if this timeline means the Senate is likely intentionally slow-walking it and it's not going to pass? Or would they just not have a hearing at all if they wanted to kill it?

I sure hope that's the case. MCPS should not be let off the hook for its terrible planning.

Keeping schools open an extra week will cost $$$. Budget is already tight

That’s in MCPS. They should have incorporated more snow days into the calendar like they used to, and used the spring contingency days. And regardless, with a $3.4+B budget, this is going to be rounding error for them.

They could have NOT had a transition day and they will ACTUALLY use April 15 which nobody will be upset about but there is no more desirable room to add snow days. Summer already was planned to start almost week later then last year due to various holidays. Between holidays, grading days and bad weather there isn't enough room for 180 days with a full summer. Maryland schools already lack adequate break time during the school year, shortening that even more or shortening summer is awful! As long as they meet for enough hours which is more than most states require they will be fine. There is no shortchanging that is worse than any other state!

Ha ha ha!

I don't know what's so funny here since it is true! I'm guessing you want a short summer and or little breaks during the school year!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No chance they open the week of 6/22. Staffing will be low, attendance will be low, and cost to do all of this will be high. Remember, 6/23 is election day (Tuesday no school), so opening only for Monday makes no sense (in their eyes).

They had several options to avoid it.

We had half days on Monday/Tuesday last year.

+1 yes poor planning does cost money, if there weren't consequences there would be no incentive to plan better

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Starting a week earlier costs money too, so either way the more days that must be held the more money that must be spent to open the schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all are talking about the the 3 days need for a waiver, but this is what the code actually says is needed:

The local school system has modified its calendar by scheduling school on the make-up days provided in the original calendar and by extending the school year 3 days beyond the previously scheduled closing date.

We are now scheduled to use one makeup day on April 15th, and couldn't use the other for political reasons. Assuming the state is happy with that, there still needs to be 3 days added onto the end of the year. Pushing us to Wednesday June 24th.

The legislative fix is the only solution that would allow us to end in the original week.

The regulation has always been interpreted as requiring three days added to the calendar at any point in the year.

There were slides posted on this forum that MSDE had put out when the current legislation was going through the house. They gave examples on how to qualify for the waiver and included both using available make-up days in the calendar and extending the school year 3 days. But I don't know where to find that document. It's in one of the many threads about this.

How does this work with some schools not having working ac?

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Anonymous wrote:MCPS sent staff a letter today stating that April 15 will now be a half day.

So April 15th will definitely be a school day and April 6th definitely will not? Or was it ambiguous on the 6th? Can someone share the text?

They didn't pick April 6 because apparently the costs of opening on that day and having to pay holiday overtime to hourly employees would be around $10 million. I would have preferred using April 6 and April 15 as opposed to extra days in June but given that explanation I can understand why they did not do so. That's a lot of money.

April 6th isn't a holiday.

It's a Maryland public school holiday.

Anonymous wrote:You all are talking about the the 3 days need for a waiver, but this is what the code actually says is needed:

The local school system has modified its calendar by scheduling school on the make-up days provided in the original calendar and by extending the school year 3 days beyond the previously scheduled closing date.

We are now scheduled to use one makeup day on April 15th, and couldn't use the other for political reasons. Assuming the state is happy with that, there still needs to be 3 days added onto the end of the year. Pushing us to Wednesday June 24th.

The legislative fix is the only solution that would allow us to end in the original week.

The regulation has always been interpreted as requiring three days added to the calendar at any point in the year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No chance they open the week of 6/22. Staffing will be low, attendance will be low, and cost to do all of this will be high. Remember, 6/23 is election day (Tuesday no school), so opening only for Monday makes no sense (in their eyes).

They had several options to avoid it.

We had half days on Monday/Tuesday last year.

+1 yes poor planning does cost money, if there weren't consequences there would be no incentive to plan better

ITA. MCPS needs to do better planning -- and the only way to get them to do that is to make them face the consequences of not doing so. Not to bail them out.