Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It has shifted to a different set if middle schoolers now, but fewer kids overall are dealing with this schedule than before, so that is progress.

And, there are lots of high schoolers still dealing with the 6:30 bus--but spending twice as long on the bus. System: FAIL

What schools are these? The high school kids near us are leaving at about 7:30.

+1
I know of no one who has had an issue with the later high school bus. Ours comes at 7:15 as opposed to last year's 6:15. Huge improvement.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It has shifted to a different set if middle schoolers now, but fewer kids overall are dealing with this schedule than before, so that is progress.

And, there are lots of high schoolers still dealing with the 6:30 bus--but spending twice as long on the bus. System: FAIL

What schools are these? The high school kids near us are leaving at about 7:30.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of these kids should be starting before 8 a.m. Period.

Most ADULTS at my office don't wander in until between 9 and 10.

you obviously don't work at the pentagon -- I'm guessing you are in law which tends to start late and stay late. Military folks consider 7:00 a.m. a "late schedule."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all the hoopla around the later HS start times and justification of the Millions $$$ spent, their was no mention of the MS students getting screwed. Bait and Switch. Karen Garza was so eager to get this through that there was no transparency about the downside, which should have been discussed. Certainly, no one raised this at our MS last year. When you add this to the high stakes budget BS, she's building a lot of distrust.

+100. At some point, she is going to need FCPS stakeholders to support her. And is going to get FCPS's collective middle finger. I certainly no longer trust her. Full day Mondays are nice (working mom here!), MS start times suck. But what get me is what she is doing with the budget-- essentially pitting FCPS parents against each other to save immersion, AAP, sports, etc. is awful. And, she's crying wolf on this one.

I'm not sure what a "total strawman" is. But (1) Garza is overstating the budget problem and being alarmist-- and now saying that 2017-2018 will be even worse, and 2018-2019 worse than that, before we ever deal with this year and (2) there are ways to get community input without a budget tool that has parents choosing which programs to cut (that is, selecting the ones that don't affect their kids). It shouldn't been AAP vs immersion vs HS sports-- Hunger Games style fight to see who gets to keep their program. It should be, how are we are a community going to come together to make tough choices about taxes, fees, and yes, cutting costs. But there has to be a less divisive approach.

The budget tool is indispensable for giving shareholders a quantitative understanding of each piece of the school system. It's all fine and good to say "just get rid of ____ (program) to solve the budget crisis" -- but if that program is only a tiny fraction of the budget, it doesn't really solve the problem. There are lots of people who think program X, Y or Z should go -- but until you know the financial impact, you won't know if that is a reasonable idea or not.

I don't think groups are being pitted against each other -- people now have access to the real numbers for each program. That's valuable info.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all the hoopla around the later HS start times and justification of the Millions $$$ spent, their was no mention of the MS students getting screwed. Bait and Switch. Karen Garza was so eager to get this through that there was no transparency about the downside, which should have been discussed. Certainly, no one raised this at our MS last year. When you add this to the high stakes budget BS, she's building a lot of distrust.

+100. At some point, she is going to need FCPS stakeholders to support her. And is going to get FCPS's collective middle finger. I certainly no longer trust her. Full day Mondays are nice (working mom here!), MS start times suck. But what get me is what she is doing with the budget-- essentially pitting FCPS parents against each other to save immersion, AAP, sports, etc. is awful. And, she's crying wolf on this one.

I'm not sure what a "total strawman" is. But (1) Garza is overstating the budget problem and being alarmist-- and now saying that 2017-2018 will be even worse, and 2018-2019 worse than that, before we ever deal with this year and (2) there are ways to get community input without a budget tool that has parents choosing which programs to cut (that is, selecting the ones that don't affect their kids). It shouldn't been AAP vs immersion vs HS sports-- Hunger Games style fight to see who gets to keep their program. It should be, how are we are a community going to come together to make tough choices about taxes, fees, and yes, cutting costs. But there has to be a less divisive approach.

The budget tool is indispensable for giving shareholders a quantitative understanding of each piece of the school system. It's all fine and good to say "just get rid of ____ (program) to solve the budget crisis" -- but if that program is only a tiny fraction of the budget, it doesn't really solve the problem. There are lots of people who think program X, Y or Z should go -- but until you know the financial impact, you won't know if that is a reasonable idea or not.

I don't think groups are being pitted against each other -- people now have access to the real numbers for each program. That's valuable info.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all the hoopla around the later HS start times and justification of the Millions $$$ spent, their was no mention of the MS students getting screwed. Bait and Switch. Karen Garza was so eager to get this through that there was no transparency about the downside, which should have been discussed. Certainly, no one raised this at our MS last year. When you add this to the high stakes budget BS, she's building a lot of distrust.

+100. At some point, she is going to need FCPS stakeholders to support her. And is going to get FCPS's collective middle finger. I certainly no longer trust her. Full day Mondays are nice (working mom here!), MS start times suck. But what get me is what she is doing with the budget-- essentially pitting FCPS parents against each other to save immersion, AAP, sports, etc. is awful. And, she's crying wolf on this one.

I'm not sure what a "total strawman" is. But (1) Garza is overstating the budget problem and being alarmist-- and now saying that 2017-2018 will be even worse, and 2018-2019 worse than that, before we ever deal with this year and (2) there are ways to get community input without a budget tool that has parents choosing which programs to cut (that is, selecting the ones that don't affect their kids). It shouldn't been AAP vs immersion vs HS sports-- Hunger Games style fight to see who gets to keep their program. It should be, how are we are a community going to come together to make tough choices about taxes, fees, and yes, cutting costs. But there has to be a less divisive approach.

Anonymous wrote:None of these kids should be starting before 8 a.m. Period.

Most ADULTS at my office don't wander in until between 9 and 10.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And PS, I see the high schoolers walking home now much later in the day... what about high schoolers who want to work after school? So now they just stay at their jobs til midnight???

Work after school?

Ha ha. Good one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In a perfect world no kid would walk to the bus stop in dark -- even kids in high school. It's not ideal for anyone, but it is what it is.

So, I guess in northern climate they would cancel school for the dark quarter?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all the hoopla around the later HS start times and justification of the Millions $$$ spent, their was no mention of the MS students getting screwed. Bait and Switch. Karen Garza was so eager to get this through that there was no transparency about the downside, which should have been discussed. Certainly, no one raised this at our MS last year. When you add this to the high stakes budget BS, she's building a lot of distrust.

+100. At some point, she is going to need FCPS stakeholders to support her. And is going to get FCPS's collective middle finger. I certainly no longer trust her. Full day Mondays are nice (working mom here!), MS start times suck. But what get me is what she is doing with the budget-- essentially pitting FCPS parents against each other to save immersion, AAP, sports, etc. is awful. And, she's crying wolf on this one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just wait until HS sports get fully started. Coaches and players have maybe ten minutes after school ends to get practice started. Likely the HS students will come home from practices later, start homework later, stay up later and...still lack sleep and shortchange themselves.

Also, traffic patterns are drastically altered. It should not take my HS student 25 minutes to drive 1.5 miles.

Why on earth would a HS student drive 1.5 miles? How about walking or bicycling that? Should be less than 10 minutes on a bike.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In all the hoopla around the later HS start times and justification of the Millions $$$ spent, their was no mention of the MS students getting screwed. Bait and Switch. Karen Garza was so eager to get this through that there was no transparency about the downside, which should have been discussed. Certainly, no one raised this at our MS last year. When you add this to the high stakes budget BS, she's building a lot of distrust.

+100. At some point, she is going to need FCPS stakeholders to support her. And is going to get FCPS's collective middle finger. I certainly no longer trust her. Full day Mondays are nice (working mom here!), MS start times suck. But what get me is what she is doing with the budget-- essentially pitting FCPS parents against each other to save immersion, AAP, sports, etc. is awful. And, she's crying wolf on this one.

Anonymous wrote:In all the hoopla around the later HS start times and justification of the Millions $$$ spent, their was no mention of the MS students getting screwed. Bait and Switch. Karen Garza was so eager to get this through that there was no transparency about the downside, which should have been discussed. Certainly, no one raised this at our MS last year. When you add this to the high stakes budget BS, she's building a lot of distrust.

Anonymous wrote:Just wait until HS sports get fully started. Coaches and players have maybe ten minutes after school ends to get practice started. Likely the HS students will come home from practices later, start homework later, stay up later and...still lack sleep and shortchange themselves.

Also, traffic patterns are drastically altered. It should not take my HS student 25 minutes to drive 1.5 miles.