From Harford County Public Schools:
As of Monday, March 25, 2013:
Per the Board approved calendar for the 2012 – 2013 school year, at this time, the last day of school for students is Friday, June 14. Below is the sequentially ordered list of make-up days to be used. Dates below with a line through them are dates identified as inclement weather make-up days that have been used and will now be dates when schools are in session.
Wednesday, June 12
Thursday, June 13
Friday, June 14
Tuesday, April 30
Monday, April 29
Wednesday, April 3
Tuesday, April 2
Monday, June 17
Six inclement weather days have been used, which means that Wednesday April 3rd, Monday, April 29th, and Tuesday, April 30th are now regular school days. We have three inclement weather make-up dates remaining. We will provide updates as we move through inclement weather season.
Waivers for days used must be granted by the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) and are not automatic regardless of ‘State of Emergency’ status, as declared by the Governor during an inclement weather event. Please note that waivers will not be considered by MSDE until the end of snow/inclement weather season. More information will be forthcoming as we move through the inclement weather season.
This is why I am leaving this county. The way they do business is disgusting. They did not think it would be smart to have a cut date on taking days from spring break. Now you have teachers whose flights don’t return until the 3rd or have made plans that will cost money to break.
HCPS clearly labeled those days as potential make-up days in the materials given to both students and teachers.
There needs to be a cut day. Are you suggesting that teachers should not make plans with their families. If it snows tomorrow, I guess it would be okay for them to take the April 2 too. Why do you hate teachers so much? Were you unable to perform in school or something?
I’m able to remember that one of the largest blizzards in recent memory occured on 1 April. Make-up days are announced at the beginning of school so booking travel on those days is at your own risk.
Wow, tou have some sort of inferiority complex. No one said they hate teachers, sole of you people act like this is communist mother Russia, don’t like it? Quit and find a new job. Pathetic.
You said you were moving, good riddance.
First off, g’bye. Secondly, can you be any more obviously a teacher whose plans have been disrupted by the weather? If you want to be upset, be upset at Mother Nature for dumping 3 inches of snow on the morning of the last Monday in March, which is exceptionally unusual. Be upset at Mother Nature for sending a hurricane our way right before the first school week of the year, causing HCPS to use two inclement weather days in August. Sorry that your vacation has been impacted. This is why teachers get a poor reputation with the general public, because a small, vocal minority seem to think they are entitled not to have to deal with the same problems that workers in the private sector have to deal with.
amen. i haven’t taken a vacation over spring break for years, just because of this type of situation. it’s just the nature of the beast 🙂
Small vocal minorities run this country Concerned Teacher. Until the rest of us wake up and smack down their foolish behavior and/or statements. Poor, poor meeee! It’s for equality, it’s fair, it’s about my civil rights! When people start jumping up and down and claiming any of this, the red flag should be flying high. Wow! seemed to have made some plans that can’t be changed. Oh well.
I remember when counties used to have an expected number of days set aside instead of automatically extending the year or cutting breaks.
That’s how this county works. There are several days set aside as inclement weather make-up days, they are published on the calendar, and the order in which in they are used is communicated regularly to staff, students, and the community.
If you disagree with how the calendar is made, volunteer for the Board of Ed’s calendar committee, or provide the committee with your input. I don’t always agree with the choices they make, but I can never say I wasn’t informed. Any teacher, student, parent, that says they aren’t informed isn’t paying attention.
There will be a lot of kids out of school next Wednesday including mine. They really should not take away a day the week before the actual day. Not too bright. Just add it to the end of the year.
So instead of impacting your vacation time on Wednesday, they should impact the vacation time of thousands of other families by adding a day at the end of the school year that was never supposed to be used (unlike April 3, which clearly was supposed to be used in an unlikely scenario such as this). Some parents just never pay any attention to the materials that the school system sends home.
I really don’t care one way or another. My kids will be on a plane on Wednesday. I seriously doubt they will be missing anything of relevance going on in a school that will be half empty.
And what lesson will they learn from that?
What happens in a school classroom is not the only kind of education students need to be exposed too. Vacations to other locations serve as valuable experiences for children and sometimes those opportunities do not coincide with the school calendar. I seriously doubt that the lessons of the day will be so earth-shattering or monumental to change the life of a student when compared to the potential for life long memories of visiting fun and possibly educational locations and building positive family relationships we all care about. We can what if ourselves to death on any topic and people that find themselves in that mindset are frequently paralyzed by indecision and accomplish little. Following that logic every airport North of the Mason Dixon Line should be closed from November to May because it might snow. Missing a day of school is not the end of the world.
Oh the lesson? Perhaps how arbitrary and capricious a government entity full of arrogance can affect a family that simply expects education and not impact their personal lives as much as this county is want to do. And reminder that we are not part of the hive mind.
We call missing school when you are on a trip “constructive absence”. Sometimes you can learn lasting lessons even when not in school.
How to submit to a government-sponsored groping without it being a “bad touch”
The lesson they will learn is clear: their parents value vacation more than education.
Concerned Teacher, What a bunch of sanctimonious BS!
Not every parents work schedule can neatly fit with the school calendar. I had a student whose family took their school aged children to Rome and it required missing a couple of school days. These kids had excellent attendance records and were good students. Their parents got lessons from their teachers so the kids could keep up with their studies while on the trip. I am certain these kids learned more about history, science, art, literature, culture, religion, and got plenty of exercise from all the walking they did on their incredible trip to Italy than they missed by not being in a classroom back here. The pictures they brought back and the stories they told were absolutely amazing.
In your view I guess it would be irresponsible for parents to take their kids out of school to attend funerals. Lets hold off on the funeral until the weekend so the kids don’t miss school, right? Better yet they can skip the funeral all together and just visit the grave during Summer break, but there won’t be a grave because Granddad had his ashes spread in the ocean.
And how about out of town weddings as well? Wait until Spring break to do that too? While maybe not labeled as vacations these are still essential activities in the lives of many families and their children. But school must come first, right?
I’ve even known a few teachers that used personal days to attach to weekends or seasonal and holiday breaks to go on vacation or a honeymoon. I guess this makes them unprofessional and bad teachers in your view. The school calendar is not the determinant factor in everyone’s life nor should it be.
So do the rest of us in education a favor the next time you decide to open your mouth or type by engaging you brain first. You’re making yourself and the rest of us look stupid.
Way to communicate with your employees on Monday. Nothing like putting your “valuable” employees lives at risk. But that’s okay because I got my email and that like two hours after I am suppose to report to work…
But lets cancel the board meeting when the roads are the best they have been all day. And yes I am mad!
Maybe the problem is with your email. The came from Teri Kranefeld at 5:03am announcing the delay, and 6:52am changing it to a cancellation. The cancellation email came more the 2 hours before high school report times that day since the delay had already been announced. Corresponding phone calls came through the AlertNow system shortly after the emails were sent out.
As far as the board meetings, all school business, including after school sports, professional development, and board meetings are usually always cancelled on days when the system is closed due to inclement weather.
You assume she is a teacher. 12 month employees (including secretaries) had to report on time. That would be 7 AM the e-mail came through at 6:50 AM that they could report later.
See that is the problem. I have to be at my building @ 6:00 am. So the email was pretty useless to me by that time. The downside to a longer school year is it cuts our summer cleaning short.
I’m sorry I just feel so under appriciated, everyone says how “valuable” we are yet we are one of the lowerst paid, we are more than overworked and yet when we ask for raises and some respect we are pretty much lauged at. I realize that this is off topic a bit but I’m just frustrated.
Christina,
Please stop. You are giving HCPS employees a really lousy reputation by the way you are publicly showing your stupidity. Believe me, HCPS employees don’t need any more negative publicity.
Concerned Teacher,
Thanks for your comments. Some people took a chance that the tentative work day would never happen. Unfortunately for them it did. Now they have to pay up. But isn’t our society more and more becoming a culture of ‘I am damned mad and I expect you to get me out of this mess that I got myself in to’? What a few HCPS employees need to learn is that by acting that way in public they are further hurting themselves and others in their profession.
I do apologize if I have come off as giving “HCPS a really lousy reputation” but I’ve been with them for 13 years, and it just gets frustrationing at times. Most of the people I work around are very nice and kind hearted. My issue is with those that make the decisions on delays and closing. If the roads are horrible for buses and for other staff to be out in it, then it should be that decision across the board.
Christina, Thanks for the service you do for the staff and the students at HCPS. And thanks for reminding everyone that there are employees out there whose schedule, convenience and safety can easily slip off the radar when decisions are being made.
I second what Alex said. No need for you to apologize, Christina, I am the one that should be as it didn’t even cross my mind when I wrote my response.
I totally agree with you Christina that if it isn’t safe for students and teachers, then it isn’t safe for custodians and secretaries either.
Thank you Alex R and Abingdon teacher, I appreciate the kinds words. Lets hope that some of the changes coming down the pike will include better safety for custodians and secretaries.
I’d like to see how the calendar committee works in bcps. They always have a week long spring break and still seem to get out the same time as HCPS. There are to many professional days keeping kids out of school.
This entire problem could be avoided if they would just take all of the teacher days during the year out of the calendar and add them on to the end of the year after the kids are gone. Then you could have the whole week off for spring break and don’t take anything away from the week no matter what happens. OK, teachers who have the entire summer off, go ahead and start complaining.
Its hard enough to get all the teachers there during the individual professional development days during the year. Telling them they’ll have to delay their Ocean City jobs an extra week or two after the kids leave would have most of the <30yo teachers in revolt.
While I don’t know any teachers that work in in OC during the Summer I am certain it is VERY few. Just you taking another cheap shot.
It may sound like a cheap shot, and he was being pretty snarky, but I always was thankful for the professional development days in between each quarter. It made for getting grades completed and submitted (and resubmitted because of the inevitable technical snafus) a much less stressful time.
Wow….
I am a teacher and I LOVE your idea. To be honest, most teachers don’t like the professional development says any more than parents do. I would MUCH rather have those days before school to get ready and after school to close things down. Whether they occur throughout the year or tagged on at the beginning or end, I have to work the contracted number of days.
And…just to be fair…it is not the “whole” summer. It is roughly 8 UNPAID weeks usually. Don’t get me wrong–it is a really nice perk. Before anyone in the private sector starts complaining, my sister-in-law works in the private sector and she gets 4 weeks of paid vacation, and she just started in the job. Not saying some people in the private sector don’t have it worse (lord knows they do), I just get tired of private sector always saying they have it so much worse than teachers. If we are all being honest, there are positives and negatives about both private and public sector employment. And…to be fair, people in the private sector like to use the argument, “Well, you chose your professional so stop complaining about it” but then they criticize the perks of being a teacher, so shouldn’t they follow their own advice and just become a teacher if it is so great/easy/etc.
Teacher, If taxpayers are paying teachers to do ‘professional development’ then we and HCPS and BOE should have teachers doing professional development and not getting ready and closing down. Are you folks professionals? If you are, then professionals need professional development. If you are not professionals then tell your colleagues and Mr. Burbey to stop referring to themselves as such.
Are you objecting to the notion that professional development days could be conducted when the kids are not present before the beginning and after the end of the school year? I work all year long, I’m not sure you can rely on my sympathy.
Jaguar Judy-
I thought it was self-explanatory that when I said put the days before to set up and close down that that implied including professional development. To me, part of preparing for the year or closing out the year is getting the most recent information on curriculum etc. In your haste to label me a complainer, maybe that was lost.
Secondly, I am not sure how you would paint me as negative when I clearly stated that there were positives and negatives about private and public sector work. My intention was to say that rather than waging a war against each other, we should see that neither side has it 100% better than the other. My tone was meant to reconciliatory while yours seems very combative.
Lastly, I would warn you to judge me as someone who does not value professional development. I participate in curriculum writing, attend and present workshops outside of my duty day, mentor new teachers, and constantly revise my lessons to reflect the latest in best practice and to integrate the requirements of the Common Core Standards. So, before you label me as a complainer, maybe you need more information. I think your name suits you. Like a jaguar, you are ready to pounce. Maybe this time you pounced before you knew what you were jumping on.
Are teachers EVER happy? They are always complaining about something.
They do seem to be, don’t they? What they don’t understand is if they worked in the real world then someone would tell them please go somewhere else where you may like it better because we aren’t listening to your constant whining here. But I do think we are hearing from the minority who are never happy with anything. At least I hope so.
Does this apply to you and others that regularly post here who never seem to be happy with anything happening in the school system? Go back and look at your own postings they are virtually all negative. Think about it!
Usually in response to some asinine comment by those that have little or no understanding of what they are talking about.
As I said above “I do think we are hearing from the minority who are never happy with anything.” If that is true then I guess I’m happy with the majority of teachers who do their job, improve their skills thru professional development opportunities and make a difference in their students lives. Too bad for them that teachers like you besmirch the reputation of their profession. Anyway, I doubt you are a teacher.
I have the degree and the certifications to prove it. What do you have? Most probably nothing but an uninformed opinion that comes through loud and clear from the tone of your postings. I have said nothing that would besmirch the reputations of teachers. And if you are happy with most of the teachers why are your always singing the negative tune?
What do I have? A BBA, MBA and DBA. Plus a few certifications in technical areas. I’m not always singing the negative tune but I do feel empathy for the teachers who do a great job only to have a few toxic ones in the minority give a very poor impression to the community at large.
If the shoe fits.
Jaguar Judy, Nothing I see in your titles would give me any comfort in your ability to pass judgement on issues facing the instructional side of public education. From the many uninformed comments you have made in the past even your opinions concerning the financial side of school system operations would give me serious pause. If you have such respect and empathy for most teachers how about posting some specific positives as stand alone comments instead of trying to hide behind the occasional gratuitous comment mixed in every so often. As you say, if the shoe fits.
to Jaguar Judy……..you just proved that post-graduate degrees do not make you smarter or wiser,judging from your comments about teachers….To everyone…Look you non-teachers, you could have been teachers, you chose not, so back off . It is easy for those not in particular profession to diparage that profession when you don’t know all the aspects involved in it, and I’m not talking just about teaching. Ya’ll just need to lighten up!!!
There are a vocal few who do often show up with complaints about a variety of things. Like Judy, I would like to believe that they are a small minority but quite vocal. We should be careful to remember that they are a vocal minority and not let their postings color our opinion of the majority of teachers and school system employees.
Sounds like a description of everybody on this board including you. You might want look in the mirror.
British teachers and pupils get a much better deal:
Vacations:
February break: 1 week
Easter: 2 weeks
Spring holiday: 1 week
Summer: 6 weeks
October break: 1 week
Christmas: 2 weeks
“Please note that schools can have amended holiday dates that include staff training days, occasional holidays and/or alternative holiday schedules.”
However; there has never been any dicussion about “make-up” days, or extended hours.
I guess the schedule must be tough for parents!
http://myschoolholidays.com/gb–Devon
But then you have to arrange for child care during each one of those breaks. It is much easier to find one solution for the entire summer and deal with Christmas and spring break by one parent taking vacation days or shipping the kids to Grandma’s.
Our educational system was not formed in order to provide daycare.
They’ve been daycare providers for years.
If only we were paid as daycare providers, or babysitters. I’d be making a fortune at the going rate today 🙂
The kids complain about your services, you won’t let them sleep, watch TV, play Halo or eat ice cream so you’re not on the “fun” babysitters list and thus not able to command the highest rate.
hahahahaha awesome. well even at $5 per hour per kid, which seems to be a pretty reasonable rate, with an average class size of 25, you would owe me about $135,000 for the 180 days. so I guess you are getting a fantastic discount 🙂
You’re missing the efficiencies that come from those 25 parents all contracting the work to one employer, and the subsequent discount. $1/hr/kid is more like it.
That is, until you get low scores on your O-levels. Then you’re hosed in the UK and you might as well start working on your shoveling techniques because you don’t have a prayer at advancing your education!
Heh! Heh! That just isn’t true! I ran away to sea when I was 14, came back to the UK when I was 21, and then completed my education. The knowledge I gained in those interim years made O and A levels an absolute breeze.
I wonder how many of the moaning parents are county, state, and federal employees.
boohoo
Teachers complain about private sector…private sector complains about teachers. Actually, we need each other. Get over it. HCPS has done a great job for my kids. I certainly don’t want to be a teacher. Instead of complaining, get a hobby. I hear sewing is really fun!
Why do you people argue with kharn? He is simply a trolling moron. He must really have an important job, spending all day trolling on the dagger.
I have disagreed with Kharn on occasion. I have found some of his posts rather intelligently thought out and I have appreciated them. That is to be expected when you find people in real life that you agree with sometime and disagree with other times. That does not make them a bad person. So I think the use of “Troll” in this instance is excessive and not a real assessment of his character.