School Calendar/Madison 2009 and on

[ionlife]

Half days--oh, how I hated those days. What a waste!! And in Kindergarten, on Monday, why even bother going? She got home at 11:30!

I like this schedule--I am like Boilrmaker. I was ready for lots of fall trips so I am hoping that we don't lose that week in oct. I will call and find out in a week if there are any legs to the rumor.

[madisonmama]

I commented in the Mill Creek Elem thread about how crazy right now it is for the district right now. There has been a huge unexpected influx of kids in the last few weeks, so they're scrambling to hire new teachers, rearrange the classes, find classrooms, etc. I called the principal of Mad. Elem. Monday am to express my concern re. 20 kids in my son's Kindy class (there were to be about 48 total in K as of late July, now there are 80). She hadn't heard about any new teachers; I spoke to Fowler 2 hours later and he said he'd approved 2 more teachers for ME.

OK, so I'm babbling. This actually has to do with the calendar in that, well, typical areas, states, districts, whatever ... don't start school on August 6. They don't expect to have registration in July. The district thinks "the numbers" will be more settled and school will start more smoothly if it starts later. I've been talking about this too much w/teachers, etc lately.

It seems like we could find a way to have both (later start & fall break), esp if we do have more days (we pay our teachers pro rated to that, right? ha!). We could lengthen the school day by 2 minutes, or something similar. I wonder if absenteeism would be higher w/o a fall break b/c lots of fams like to do some kind of vacation off season (who wants to fight huge crowds or melt at WDW?). I know we're going to the beach for fall break. And now it doesn't seem like much of a summer .

[ionlife]

I spoke with another person in the education area and she said that the fall break will probably stay--interestingly, the Madison school year is one of the longest in the nation at 190 days.

I agree--a slightly later start with a fall break should still work. why not extend past memorial day weekend? I don't have all the intelligence or time right now to gather it, but I will study up on this more.

Good luck with the crazy school this year... we had similar numbers eons ago in my girl's K class and it was a mess even with a later start--no one can seem to predict how the class sizes will be despite new construction all around --

i think they wait until they have to spend the money to hire the teachers--budget stuff.

???

[momlovesjesus]

Sorry I'm so late in this thread. I too had heard that we might not have a Fall break next year. The central office told me that they have not heard if the state will increase the amount of days the kids will need to attend in 09-10. The state also doesn't like the fact that we start so early in the year. So it looks like the state has the control. That's is a bit scary considering our city schools out perform the rest of the state. We have planned on using Fall break time to visit colleges. Hope we can still get it.

[ionlife]

Originally Posted by momlovesjesus

The central office told me that they have not heard if the state will increase the amount of days the kids will need to attend in 09-10. The state also doesn't like the fact that we start so early in the year. So it looks like the state has the control. That's is a bit scary considering our city schools out perform the rest of the state. We have planned on using Fall break time to visit colleges. Hope we can still get it.

Wow, that's wild that they're considering adding days to the calendar. My daughter told me that her school district in Madison has the most days of many across the nation. And I believe that is longer than her old district in Fairfax County, but I mght be mistaken.

Good luck looking for colleges! My BF's daughter is off to Virginia Tech today. Exciting and scary!!

I'll have to call the central office in January and ask--that would be a drag to lose that break--but at least we get it this year. We had NO summer at all to speak of--6 weeks off before starting again and half of that time was unpacking boxes for my girl.