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Yeah people went from grumbling to truly pissed off. As one mom said "I've planned this vacation for almost a year and now I feel guilty going and my high schooler is freaking out about what she's missing. Thanks WCPSS!"
I saw quite a few posts claiming non-refundable tickets were bought after WCPSS tweeted spring break was protected. I am willing to bet some of those claims were incorrect.
You must be talking about the 7000+ GF petitioners I presume.
Actually, I believe the 7,000+ was the Spring Break petitioners.
Quote:
More than 7,500 signatures have been collected on an online petition asking Wake to restore the three days being taken out of spring break. Complaining parents, students and teachers cite conflicts such as payments for spring break vacations that are nonrefundable.
I just read a good editorial in the Chapel Hill News from the Orange County School board about why they have Saturday school — the legislature has taken away their flexibility, mandating a certain number of teacher workdays, plus ending by June 11th or the Friday closest to it. I knew about the start and end dates, but if I had read about the 10 required teacher workdays it hadn't sunk in. I imagine many teachers (and most parents) would rather use teacher workdays to make up those snow days than take away Spring Break or have school on Saturday. Maybe that requirement is why Wake won't add more time to the end of the school year? Would taking those teacher workdays leave them w/o 10?
You may remember when school districts were able to set their own calendars based on what was best for their own communities. During those times, makeup days could be worked into teacher workdays or added to the end of the school year. Unfortunately, with the beginning of the 2013-14 school year, the General Assembly took that flexibility away from local districts and authorized a centralized statewide approach to setting school calendars. The new law greatly diminishes and compromises local school boards’ roles and authority in setting their own calendar.Here are examples of how the state tells us that we must administer our local school calendar:
▪ School year cannot start earlier than the Monday closest to August 26 and must end no later than theFriday closest to June 11;
▪ Must have a minimum of 185 days OR 1,025 hours of instruction;
▪ Must have at least ten (10) teacher workdays;
▪ Have a minimum of ten (10) annual vacation leave days;
▪ Have the same or an equivalent number of legal holidays occurring within the school calendar as those designated by the State Personnel Commission for State employees;
▪ School shall not be held on Sunday or Veterans Day
Our board firmly believes that we do not live in a “one-size fits all” state – each community has its own unique requirements and needs, and local school districts should be able to set their own school calendar to meet the local uniqueness in the best ways. This encroachment by the General Assembly has greatly eroded school districts’ flexibility in deciding what is best for its own community. Some legislators recognize just how illogical the current calendar law is, and they have tried to help school districts across the state regain the much-needed flexibility by introducing amendments to the calendar law.
We are sorry to say that past amendment proposals have been unsuccessful and the inflexible calendar law remains intact and continues to limit communities on how to tackle make up days in ways that are best for their particular communities.
As a teacher, I would do away with workdays altogether....including the ones in August and June. In n.j, we had 1 day prior to school opening to set up our classroom and then 1 day after school got out to shut down for summer ...and it was fine. Early release days were used to do report cards and conduct conferences. Then they could build in snow days....if it's a mild winter and there were few or no snow days, we just got out of school earlier.
As a teacher, I would do away with workdays altogether....including the ones in August and June. In n.j, we had 1 day prior to school opening to set up our classroom and then 1 day after school got out to shut down for summer ...and it was fine. Early release days were used to do report cards and conduct conferences. Then they could build in snow days....if it's a mild winter and there were few or no snow days, we just got out of school earlier.
We had the same in WI for beginning and end of school. Most work days were just daylong meetings that never applied to all staff anyhow. I would have given those up in a minute. Now, teacher workdays for grading/paperwork-those would be harder to give up, but those were few and far between.
But gosh, there are a lot of those workdays here for teachers they could give up. JoCo used the teacher workdays and made early release full days first, and then went into spring break.
Seems like really dumb legislation breaking things that didn't need fixing. I mean were there a lot of instances of traditional calendar NC schools getting out really late in June? I can't remember kids getting out on the 26th of June or anything. If they're going to mandate all this stuff, then they ought to forgive the snow days.
My kids teachers haven't said what they will be doing but we have been polled. This is more for staffing reasons so they can plan to combine classes since many schools won't have enough teachers and subs probably will be in short supply.
Hey, might be some temp work for all of those who moved down and were complaining that they've been here "two whole weeks" without being hired for a job yet!
Seems like really dumb legislation breaking things that didn't need fixing. I mean were there a lot of instances of traditional calendar NC schools getting out really late in June? I can't remember kids getting out on the 26th of June or anything. If they're going to mandate all this stuff, then they ought to forgive the snow days.
It was more about the early starts (intended to align semester breaks with winter holiday).
Where did they do early starts? I think they do that some in the mountains because of snow (I think they have a special dispensation), but just wondering what other districts go back early in August? I know some other parts of the country wait until after labor day, but we've been going back in August for the past 50 yrs here in NC, and the areas that I'm familiar with have always been later in August, but maybe there were other areas where it was earlier?
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