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This has become a hot topic these days. It was merely a non issue until the last two decade or so as schools back then in much of the country including Maryland naturally and almost uniformally started after Labor Day and ended around early to no later than mid June. While there wasn’t legislation but starting earlier than September was simply unknown.
I hear people with concerns that although the number of days and hours stay the same schools have less flexibility for makeup days. though maybe more states like Maryland should follow California’s example of allowing districts to waive days lost due to act of God force majeure situations which has been the practice in CA since legislation passed in 1990. Therefore districts in CA do not need to deal with building in makeup days into their calendar or scramble to makeup days lost to an emergency situation. With just very few exceptions. The recent wildfires in CA has caused many districts to close for a number of days up to a week or more. Fortunately those days are all waived under the 1990 act. There are better ways to actually makeup education lost by unexpected events than to garnish breaks in another quarter or semester. Having contengency plans to make up lost course materials is a much better alternative. Though it all depends on whether bureaucrats makes it a priority.
There is no denying that most families in Maryland and other states would prefer schools start after Labor Day than before just as how most customers in grocery stores would prefer plastic bags whenever given a choice, yet the buracrats always think otherwise.
Last edited by citizensadvocate; 01-04-2018 at 12:26 AM..
Maryland has a mechanism to request waivers for days missed for natural disasters. There has to be a declaration by the Governor of a State of Emergency, such as today for the almost blizzard, and the local school system (Maryland schools are County based) has to request the waiver from Maryland State Department of Education.
Some systems get an almost automatic approval while others have to jump through hoops. My (former) system would sometimes "forget" to request the waiver or, more often, ask for fewer days than authorized (10 days qualify for waivers and only request 2 days). It was also one of the systems that had hoops to jump through.
The decision to close schools is not made lightly. As mentioned by someone else, the decision sometimes hinges on the free meals program. In many cases the only meal some kids get is at school. Many elementary schools in my former system (70% of school population on FARM) send food bags home on the weekend with the kids so they don't go two days with no or minimal food. That makes the decision to close on a Monday or Friday problematic.
In my 30+ years there were a few times we would be off for a couple days, get called in on a two hour delay with a two hour early dismissal just to feed the kids. We'd then be off a couple more days because the roads were still almost impassable.
If public schools were required to recognize anything as an "act of God", wouldn't that violate the establishment clause?
There is really a very simple solution to all this. Make the school day 20 minutes longer and the school year five days shorter.
Where, by the way is it carved in stone than an education is impossible to attain in less than 180 classroom days? If a child is sick, and misses a day, that day is easily made up. Why can't a whole classroom make up a missed day?
Interesting this is the 1990 legislation in California based on the article I posted above:
According to the California Department of Education (CDE), there is, “a requirement for 180 instructional days.” However, “state law permits a school district to waive that requirement and file a claim for average daily attendance (ADA) in the case of an emergency condition that causes a district to close, like a wildfire (Education Code Sections 41422 and 46392, and California Code of Regulations, Title 5, Section 428),” Dr. Churchill explained.
I guess the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake probably helped to craft the legislation.
This makes sense as no principal or superintendent would intentionally want their schools to miss a day of education unless its extremely unavoidable. Its also not right to force schools to scramble to makeup when they are "forced" to close due to county or state declaring an emergency in other words those in charge of schools might not be able to keep schools open even if they wanted to(I.e in the Lilac Fire and Thomas fires many of the schools had to evacuate due to fire approaching them, and area was under official evacuation alert which prevents them from holding school again for days)(this is not so different from eastern states declaring travel bans during extreme snow storms which can last nearly a week at times). The basic contract law concept in almost every other setting including for Uni/colleges have an exception clause to cover such events why should k-12 public schools be any different? Of courses they could voluntarily choose to help their students make up for any learning lost due to the unexpected interruption as well as lunch programs they might have to miss. As I mentioned and the above poster mentioned having a real contingency plan for missed lesson plans (i.e home packets, online, etc) and or a plan for extending the school day and each period an appropriate amount in the same term to help teachers make up time in covering coursework that were interrupted due to the unexpected disruption. Its much better than garnishing scheduled breaks, holidays, weekends or end of school year in another semester which students even if they show up won't concentrate on studying or just be watching movies whole day. Interestingly Unexpected cancellations in California only happened very few times when I am growing up and in recent years. When it does happen its usually due to severe storms that hit during the winter which causes downed trees, flooded roads, mudslides and power outages, though occasionally extremely thick fog, smoke from wildfires, extreme air pollution, and the freak low elevation snowfall can do too.
It appears in California a waiver is guaranteed in such circumstances but not so in many other states I guess including Maryland as the above poster mentioned some districts easy to waiver others have hoops to jump through. I heard even neighboring Nevada has issues with Las Vegas school district cancelling a day of school due to a once in three decades snowfall a few years ago. Really you don't forgive them for such a freak once in a school life time occurrence. This kind of cancellation it would had been forgiven and waived no questions asked.
This has become a hot topic these days. It was merely a non issue until the last two decade or so as schools back then in much of the country including Maryland naturally and almost uniformally started after Labor Day and ended around early to no later than mid June. While there wasn’t legislation but starting earlier than September was simply unknown.
I hear people with concerns that although the number of days and hours stay the same schools have less flexibility for makeup days. though maybe more states like Maryland should follow California’s example of allowing districts to waive days lost due to act of God force majeure situations which has been the practice in CA since legislation passed in 1990. Therefore districts in CA do not need to deal with building in makeup days into their calendar or scramble to makeup days lost to an emergency situation. With just very few exceptions. The recent wildfires in CA has caused many districts to close for a number of days up to a week or more. Fortunately those days are all waived under the 1990 act. There are better ways to actually makeup education lost by unexpected events than to garnish breaks in another quarter or semester. Having contengency plans to make up lost course materials is a much better alternative. Though it all depends on whether bureaucrats makes it a priority.
There is no denying that most families in Maryland and other states would prefer schools start after Labor Day than before just as how most customers in grocery stores would prefer plastic bags whenever given a choice, yet the buracrats always think otherwise.
I just wanted to correct what I bolded about Maryland. In my over 30 years teaching in the state, starting in 1983 or 84 and ending in 2015, we never, not once, not ever started after Labor Day. It was always teacher report around August 15th with kids reporting around the 20th. The earliest we ever got out in June was around the 15th with the latest one year being the 26th. It was usually around the 18th. This year the last day for teachers is the 20th with students getting out the 15th. That now has changed with today's snow day to the 21st for teachers. MSDE won't authorize possible waivers for just one day.
As a note, even if waivers were granted it was only for student contact days. Teachers had to fulfill our 192 day contract, usually by going to absolutely worthless, slapped together at the last minute meetings. For several years two of those days were unpaid, a giveback by the Association so we could get a 1% raise that year.
Wow I guess I didn't say all Maryland schools always started after Labor Day in the past. The ones I know did do so up to the 1990s. So does Ocean City. Probably your school district(s) seems particularly mean. Though overall the early start creep is a relatively recent phenomenon in much of the country with a limited number of exceptions. Though contrary to popular belief the Labor Day to mid June schedule only became standardized in starting in 1950s around the country. Before that time in some areas of the country schools actually had fall instead of summer vacation due to harvest schedules. So calling it the outdated agricultural calendar is actually a myth.
Though it appears according to what you mentioned starting schools early in August it doesn't necessary improve the make up day situation as they still often have to scramble to make them up and this often means garnishing breaks on the last quarter or dragging the end of the year later. Which still affects summer plans for many of the family. This alone negates any benefits of trading the last weeks of August summer vacation to start the new school year. I guess the only reason school districts are up in their arms for early starts are just to help local educators feel warm and fuzzy inside that they got more days of school year before those "standardlized tests." Though now that everyone starts on the same day they are even.
It would be interesting to ask California teachers what happens to their pay due to the week lost by the wildfires though which the state automatically wavered.
Last edited by citizensadvocate; 01-04-2018 at 03:35 PM..
Wow I guess I didn't say all Maryland schools always started after Labor Day in the past. Probably your school district(s) seems particularly mean. Though overall the early start creep is a relatively recent phenomenon in much of the country with a limited number of exceptions. Though contrary to popular belief the Labor Day to mid June schedule only became standardized in starting in 1950s around the country. Before that time in some areas of the country schools actually had fall instead of summer vacation due to harvest schedules. So calling it the outdated agricultural calendar is actually a myth.
Though it appears according to what you mentioned even if schools can start early in the summer it doesn't necessary improve the make up day situation as they still often have to scramble to make them up and this often means garnishing breaks on the last quarter or dragging the end of the year later. Which still affects summer plans for many of the family.
It would be interesting to ask California teachers what happens to their pay due to the week lost by the wildfires though which the state automatically waivered.
Maryland schools, with only a couple exceptions a couple or three decades ago, always started in August, usually the last week. It's only the last ten or so years the start started getting pushed back into the third or even second week of the month.
Part of the reason is the number of mandated inservice days started to increase. The lower your school system ranking the more days were mandated. It used to be a minimum for all systems of ten days.
Plus, Maryland has some weird days off. Always closed for Election Day. Closed for the Maryland State Education Association conference, that used to be two days then was cut to one a few years ago.
A lot of systems took Jewish holidays, a couple have now added Islamic ones.
The reality is that not one month except March in the school year did the scheduled days equal a full month of school days.
My system wasn't mean so much as run by morons with intense political meddling. It's also the second worst system in the state while being the largest, wealthiest and best educated majority minority system in the US. Yes, it beats Atlanta.
It's sad that one needs to issue an executive order for this.When I went to school,it did start after Labor Day.I don't understand why schools keep starting earlier and earlier each year! People need a break.I fully enjoyed my full 3 months of summer.They need to go back to school starting after Labor Day and ending at the end of May.Those were the good old days
And they say us old folks are set in our ways!
Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
Didn't we just do a thread about this general topic?
Yes.
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Originally Posted by DanArt
Actually that is how it suppose to be. It really depends on what day it lands on the calendar.
Labor Day is always the first Monday in September.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cebuan
If public schools were required to recognize anything as an "act of God", wouldn't that violate the establishment clause?
There is really a very simple solution to all this. Make the school day 20 minutes longer and the school year five days shorter.
Where, by the way is it carved in stone than an education is impossible to attain in less than 180 classroom days? If a child is sick, and misses a day, that day is easily made up. Why can't a whole classroom make up a missed day?
Some districts in Colorado do this, as Colorado law allows for it. The requirement is so many days or so many hours (too lazy to look it up right now).
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