OP needs to get over themselves. Virginia has had hourly requirements for years and they are testing way better than MD

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to prepare to pay staff and teachers when the year is extended. By extending the school year, it eats into days that they could work a summer job.

The calendar isn't being extended. This is using the make-up days already in the calendars. These are already covered by the compensation for salaried staff.

This is true, but misses a point that the previous poster was making.

If school ended "on time," teachers would be able to start summer employment. Some need that employment to pay the bills. Teachers are paid for a certain number of days each year. They did not "work" the snow days, so those days do not count towards that total. However, for pay purposes, they were paid on the snow days. They will now work the extended days without pay. Contractually, this is good because they worked the number of days they should work and were paid for those days, just paid "in advance" (on the snow day, not on the extended day).


I understand this is what the teachers contracted to do. In a way, they need to "take a deep breath and get to work." However, everyone deserves a well planned out calendar. If we had a well planned out calendar this year with contingency days that would actually work (not using someone's religious holiday), then we would not be in this place now where families with vacations need to decide if they pull their students out of school or not and teachers with summer jobs need to decide if they are going to take leave in order to do their second job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While the law should be changed the change shouldn't take affect until July 1 so MCPS don't receive a cop out for their ineptness of not using in year days that they specified as possible makeup days or going virtual once it became allowed. They don't appear to be going virtual tomorrow either.
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With that said what's happened this year should not have to be dealt with again regardless of how future winters may go.

So the solution is to let MCPS reduce the number of days in the year rather than forcing them to fix their calendar?

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Other than the transition day, how do you fix it?
Start earlier? Lose a week or more of summer
Get rid of all religious holidays? I wouldn't oppose an everyone is in a similar boat situation like Georgia and Washington State where the only annual religious closure is Christmas but many other people would complain in these parts which is why schools are closed.
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Here's an idea since 180/5=36. Require 36 scheduled school weeks that are at least 3 days long, including 30 of which must be at least 4 days. If a school week that was scheduled as 3+ days got shortened to bad weather it will still count towards that requirement but the lost hours won't. If a school week is 2 days like Thanksgiving those days still counts towards the hours requirement.

Anonymous wrote:While the law should be changed the change shouldn't take affect until July 1 so MCPS don't receive a cop out for their ineptness of not using in year days that they specified as possible makeup days or going virtual once it became allowed. They don't appear to be going virtual tomorrow either.
------------------
With that said what's happened this year should not have to be dealt with again regardless of how future winters may go.

So the solution is to let MCPS reduce the number of days in the year rather than forcing them to fix their calendar?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no point in having school on Christmas or New Year's. Too many teachers and students would not show up. It would be a useless day just like the days tacked on at the end. And that's also an issue for the Jewish holidays. I don't understand why anyone is proposing this as a solution.

Winter break can still be winter break. Get rid of Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yes I know “state requirement” but that’s a bill I could support — making those available for makeup days.

Yes, why don't you get right on that with your advocacy of changing that law that has been there for generations.

Or you could write the BOE and tell them it's important that MCPS put in more than 1 snow day into the calendar, and that it puts makeup days on the calendar that it intends to use. And that it submits the virtual learning plan for snow emergencies that it promised the BOE it would prepare in 2024. These 3 actions are more attainable.

Why not all of the above? Getting to a calendar with more actual makeup days and actual snow days will require going up some days off somewhere in the calendar. The reason why we have so many seemingly random days off is because we’re trying to accommodate everyone. There isn’t a way to accomplish your ask without taking holidays…

Fairfax County has similarly diverse holidays accomodated, but starts one week earlier than MCPS in August. Fine with me. Anything would better of this status quo of having kids not get 180 days of instructional time each year because MCPS refuses to put in snow days.

Lol whats with hitting this magical 180 days? Hint: IT'S MADE UP. Some states have 160. Some have 178. Some have 175. Some have no requirements at all when it comes to days. It's an imaginary number. It doesn't magically make learning happen. I can't believe this has to be explained to grown adults.

This. What is so magical about 180 days? It could have been 176 or 182. Micromanaging at this level is ridiculous

It’s called a floor. It’s a minimum. The district can certainly go above it. If the state wants to lower the floor for all districts then we should have that debate. But what this bill does is let MCPS potentially significantly reduce the number of days without recourse. No, no thank you.

While the law should be changed the change shouldn't take affect until July 1 so MCPS don't receive a cop out for their ineptness of not using in year days that they specified as possible makeup days or going virtual once it became allowed. They don't appear to be going virtual tomorrow either.
------------------
With that said what's happened this year should not have to be dealt with again regardless of how future winters may go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no point in having school on Christmas or New Year's. Too many teachers and students would not show up. It would be a useless day just like the days tacked on at the end. And that's also an issue for the Jewish holidays. I don't understand why anyone is proposing this as a solution.

Winter break can still be winter break. Get rid of Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yes I know “state requirement” but that’s a bill I could support — making those available for makeup days.

Yes, why don't you get right on that with your advocacy of changing that law that has been there for generations.

Or you could write the BOE and tell them it's important that MCPS put in more than 1 snow day into the calendar, and that it puts makeup days on the calendar that it intends to use. And that it submits the virtual learning plan for snow emergencies that it promised the BOE it would prepare in 2024. These 3 actions are more attainable.

Why not all of the above? Getting to a calendar with more actual makeup days and actual snow days will require going up some days off somewhere in the calendar. The reason why we have so many seemingly random days off is because we’re trying to accommodate everyone. There isn’t a way to accomplish your ask without taking holidays…

Fairfax County has similarly diverse holidays accomodated, but starts one week earlier than MCPS in August. Fine with me. Anything would better of this status quo of having kids not get 180 days of instructional time each year because MCPS refuses to put in snow days.

Lol whats with hitting this magical 180 days? Hint: IT'S MADE UP. Some states have 160. Some have 178. Some have 175. Some have no requirements at all when it comes to days. It's an imaginary number. It doesn't magically make learning happen. I can't believe this has to be explained to grown adults.

This. What is so magical about 180 days? It could have been 176 or 182. Micromanaging at this level is ridiculous

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no point in having school on Christmas or New Year's. Too many teachers and students would not show up. It would be a useless day just like the days tacked on at the end. And that's also an issue for the Jewish holidays. I don't understand why anyone is proposing this as a solution.

Winter break can still be winter break. Get rid of Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yes I know “state requirement” but that’s a bill I could support — making those available for makeup days.

Yes, why don't you get right on that with your advocacy of changing that law that has been there for generations.

Or you could write the BOE and tell them it's important that MCPS put in more than 1 snow day into the calendar, and that it puts makeup days on the calendar that it intends to use. And that it submits the virtual learning plan for snow emergencies that it promised the BOE it would prepare in 2024. These 3 actions are more attainable.

Why not all of the above? Getting to a calendar with more actual makeup days and actual snow days will require going up some days off somewhere in the calendar. The reason why we have so many seemingly random days off is because we’re trying to accommodate everyone. There isn’t a way to accomplish your ask without taking holidays…

Fairfax County has similarly diverse holidays accomodated, but starts one week earlier than MCPS in August. Fine with me. Anything would better of this status quo of having kids not get 180 days of instructional time each year because MCPS refuses to put in snow days.

Lol whats with hitting this magical 180 days? Hint: IT'S MADE UP. Some states have 160. Some have 178. Some have 175. Some have no requirements at all when it comes to days. It's an imaginary number. It doesn't magically make learning happen. I can't believe this has to be explained to grown adults.

No, it doesn't "magically make learning happen," but learning doesn't happen without it. The 180 day requirement is very common across the country. And even in states with lower legal requirements, like Minnesota, local school districts still select something close to that.

The 180 day requirement though listed in various states isn't the same. Many of these states either allow a specific number of hours (anywhere from 900-1080) to credit schools with a 180 day year even if less than 180 days occur as long as they reach the hours required. Others require 180 scheduled days but forgive bad weather days and some count 3-5 professional days towards the requirement.
It's having to schedule 180 days excluding staff development days AND makeup any closures that reduce the number below 180 that creates this nightmare. Now that there are a bunch of religious holidays the "days" requirement cuts off a week of summer before any makeup days. Look at how Florida does it (they don't get snow days but have to deal with hurricanes every 2 or 3 years and sometimes miss double digit days). They usually only have to extend short days to full days and use a PD day or two. The school year almost never extends into the next week.

The solution to this is right in your message. The solution isn’t to reduce the number of days, it’s to fix the root cause. We clearly can’t accommodate everyone’s holiday and still have sufficient days… oh and we should start a week earlier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no point in having school on Christmas or New Year's. Too many teachers and students would not show up. It would be a useless day just like the days tacked on at the end. And that's also an issue for the Jewish holidays. I don't understand why anyone is proposing this as a solution.

Winter break can still be winter break. Get rid of Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yes I know “state requirement” but that’s a bill I could support — making those available for makeup days.

Yes, why don't you get right on that with your advocacy of changing that law that has been there for generations.

Or you could write the BOE and tell them it's important that MCPS put in more than 1 snow day into the calendar, and that it puts makeup days on the calendar that it intends to use. And that it submits the virtual learning plan for snow emergencies that it promised the BOE it would prepare in 2024. These 3 actions are more attainable.

Why not all of the above? Getting to a calendar with more actual makeup days and actual snow days will require going up some days off somewhere in the calendar. The reason why we have so many seemingly random days off is because we’re trying to accommodate everyone. There isn’t a way to accomplish your ask without taking holidays…

Fairfax County has similarly diverse holidays accomodated, but starts one week earlier than MCPS in August. Fine with me. Anything would better of this status quo of having kids not get 180 days of instructional time each year because MCPS refuses to put in snow days.

Lol whats with hitting this magical 180 days? Hint: IT'S MADE UP. Some states have 160. Some have 178. Some have 175. Some have no requirements at all when it comes to days. It's an imaginary number. It doesn't magically make learning happen. I can't believe this has to be explained to grown adults.

Most states have 180. "The most common way that states regulate instructional time is to set a minimum number of days for the school year; 38 states and the District of Columbia do so. The majority of those states (27 of 38), along with D.C., mandate 180 instructional days, making it the closest thing the country has to a national norm."

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/07/in-the-u-s-180-days-of-school-is-most-common-but-length-of-school-day-varies-by-state/

This article does tell you that some of the states with 180 day requirements allow a specified hours substitute.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no point in having school on Christmas or New Year's. Too many teachers and students would not show up. It would be a useless day just like the days tacked on at the end. And that's also an issue for the Jewish holidays. I don't understand why anyone is proposing this as a solution.

Winter break can still be winter break. Get rid of Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yes I know “state requirement” but that’s a bill I could support — making those available for makeup days.

Yes, why don't you get right on that with your advocacy of changing that law that has been there for generations.

Or you could write the BOE and tell them it's important that MCPS put in more than 1 snow day into the calendar, and that it puts makeup days on the calendar that it intends to use. And that it submits the virtual learning plan for snow emergencies that it promised the BOE it would prepare in 2024. These 3 actions are more attainable.

Why not all of the above? Getting to a calendar with more actual makeup days and actual snow days will require going up some days off somewhere in the calendar. The reason why we have so many seemingly random days off is because we’re trying to accommodate everyone. There isn’t a way to accomplish your ask without taking holidays…

Fairfax County has similarly diverse holidays accomodated, but starts one week earlier than MCPS in August. Fine with me. Anything would better of this status quo of having kids not get 180 days of instructional time each year because MCPS refuses to put in snow days.

Lol whats with hitting this magical 180 days? Hint: IT'S MADE UP. Some states have 160. Some have 178. Some have 175. Some have no requirements at all when it comes to days. It's an imaginary number. It doesn't magically make learning happen. I can't believe this has to be explained to grown adults.

No, it doesn't "magically make learning happen," but learning doesn't happen without it. The 180 day requirement is very common across the country. And even in states with lower legal requirements, like Minnesota, local school districts still select something close to that.

The 180 day requirement though listed in various states isn't the same. Many of these states either allow a specific number of hours (anywhere from 900-1080) to credit schools with a 180 day year even if less than 180 days occur as long as they reach the hours required. Others require 180 scheduled days but forgive bad weather days and some count 3-5 professional days towards the requirement.
It's having to schedule 180 days excluding staff development days AND makeup any closures that reduce the number below 180 that creates this nightmare. Now that there are a bunch of religious holidays the "days" requirement cuts off a week of summer before any makeup days. Look at how Florida does it (they don't get snow days but have to deal with hurricanes every 2 or 3 years and sometimes miss double digit days). They usually only have to extend short days to full days and use a PD day or two. The school year almost never extends into the next week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If we can’t switch to counting minutes I would like to revisit the length of the school day. If the extra minutes count for nothing, make the days shorter, especially for the elementary kids.

lol. Sure. I'd love to see your testimony to the BoE saying kids are learning too much.

+1. Yes please link to when you do that so we can all see your brilliant narrative advocating for less instructional time when half of McPS kids can’t read or do math at grade level proficiency.

You are all over these (multiple) threads. Yes, it’s you, because use the same phrase with the same wording over and over and over. At this point, just get an Amazon parrot to type your incessant comments for you and go get some fresh air.

Anonymous wrote:The #1 group this will hurt is low income children and families. #2 is kids who are struggling post pandemic and need instructional time. I’m sure there are others. So irresponsible and shameful.

BZZT! It’s 2026. Your COVID Excuse Card is long expired.

Anonymous wrote:For those who oppose this, how do we fight - and quickly?? Is there anyone leading the way?

LOL

Anonymous wrote:If we can’t switch to counting minutes I would like to revisit the length of the school day. If the extra minutes count for nothing, make the days shorter, especially for the elementary kids.

Oh, but we can’t do that. “But..but…I haaaave to woooooork.” 🙄

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS already goes well above the required hours. Whoever thinks they are trying to pull a "fast one" hasn't done spent any time actually researching the bill or done a comparison to other states' requirements.

It does NOT let them have fewer school days.

Are you a shrill for the teachers union or MCPS? That’s literally what the plain language of the bill does. Right now MCPS is required, as every other district, to provide both days AND hours. The bill would say “eh, hours is fine.” I want more school for my kids, not less.

A what?