Early dismissal time for elementary school students will come a little earlier in the coming school year, under schedule changes announced to parents Monday by Harford County Public Schools. Students will now be dismissed 3 hours early, rather than 2 ½ hours early on the ten early dismissal days designated each year for elementary teacher planning. In the 2013-14 calendar, such days are scheduled once per month on a Friday.
“The early dismissal time was moved up by 30 minutes in order to allow time for our buses to more efficiently accommodate all stops and schedules on early dismissal days”, according to Teri Kranefeld, HCPS manager of communications.
For most elementary school parents, the change means that students will get out at 12:30 p.m. rather than 1:00 p.m. on early dismissal days. Elementary students on fourth-tier busing will get out at 1:00 p.m. rather than 1:30 p.m. The first early dismissal day scheduled in the new school year is September 20, 2013. The complete list appears below.
The schedule change, announced one week before the start of school on August 26, comes amid a number of budget-related cutbacks to bus service affecting elementary, middle and high school students. The service cuts were implemented to save $890,000 in the fiscal year 2014 budget, sparking a backlash from some parents.
The changes announced in July include:
• Consolidated bus stops implemented for middle and high school students: Stops have been reconfigured to decrease the number of stops and shorten routes where possible.
• Four elementary schools added to the fourth tier bus schedule: Bakerfield, Red Pump, Bel Air and Forest Lakes elementary schools will now operate on the fourth tier bus schedule, meaning that school will start at 9:30 a.m., and students will be dismissed at 4:00 p.m. on regular school days.
• Exceptions to transportation policy eliminated: As a matter of policy, elementary students who live within a one-mile radius of school, and middle and high school students who live within a one-and-a-half-mile radius, are not eligible for bus service. Previously granted waivers to this policy have been eliminated; exemptions were lifted.
• Depot stop system implemented for magnet programs: Bus service for students enrolled in magnet programs at Aberdeen, Edgewood, and North Harford high schools has been reduced to a depot stop system. Parents are responsible for getting their student to and from their chosen depot stop located at any one of nine county public high schools. Depot options for afternoon only include Harford County Public Library locations in Jarrettsville and Fallston.
Bus routes and information for all students were posted in early August. School officials have urged all parents to pay close attention to bus stop locations and bus numbers, indicating they had most likely changed from prior years.
Below is the text of the Monday phone message to parents announcing the schedule change for elementary school early dismissal days:
“Subject: 2013-14 Elementary Early Dismissal Schedule Announcements
Good evening. This is Harford County Public Schools calling parents of all elementary school students with important information regarding the elementary early dismissal schedule for this school year. You may be aware that each year there are 10 elementary early dismissal days scheduled throughout the school year, one per month always scheduled on a Friday. New this year, all elementary schools will dismiss 3 hours early on those elementary early dismissal days. A full schedule can be found on the school system website by visiting www.hcps.org, clicking on the ‘Back to School’ button on the homepage and scrolling down to the link entitled “2013-14 Elementary Early Dismissal Schedule.” Reminder notifications will continue to be made throughout the year via this notification system. However, we wanted you to be aware of the schedule as you were planning out your year. We look forward to welcoming your children back to school next Monday, August 26. Have a great evening.”
Below is the list of all elementary early dismissal days for the 2013-14 school year:
Could to see that they are geting off even earlier, cause it was not enough of a pain in the tail fo working paretns already. They have so many days off and half days the the primary level! I doubt anyone in power ever worries about the impact this has on working parents.
Children are a parents responsibility not the schools, if your schedule doesn’t allow you to take care of them properly perhaps you should not have had them.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but doesn’t HCPS provide bus transportation to students?
“Depot options for afternoon only include Harford County Public Library locations in Jarrettsville and Fallston.”
Students can ride the bus from their magnet programs to the libraries instead of their local high schools?
This is just one more way the 4th Tier busing is affecting working all elementary parents. If you work in Baltimore, good luck even getting a half day of work in if you don’t have regular day care. Why even bother to go? They have to get lunch in too…so it is obvious instruction is not as important to HCPS as money savings. They just realized with adding 4 more 4th Tier buses and cutting the number of buses they use that they were out of luck on early dismissal days without doing this!
The planned early dismissal days have nothing to do with saving money. These days are for lesson planning, staff development, report card completion, etc. Not trying to be smart, just asking the question; does 30 minutes make that much difference?
I don’t think it does, seeing first hand how rushed these days already are for the teachers and the students. It will be interesting to see how each individual school handles it.
Omg, 30 ******* minutes of inconvenience for you?
No one has removed the option for you to send the little ones to private school have they?
Or before/after care.
this shall be interesting. . . lunches are already earlier on early dismissal days – going right up to 10 minutes before the end of the day. Some schools serve free breakfast and this is really going to confuse the little ones (kindergartners) – they will be eating breakfast between 8:30- 9:00 a.m. (unless 4th tier) and then probably going to lunch at 10 a.m. Math and ILA (Reading) are usually the only subjects taught. Some schools still hold Specials but only for 30 minutes.
Wish HCPS would look to their neighbors to the north (Cecil County) and have a set schedule for early dismissal days (every Wednesday). At least parents know WELL in advanced of the school schedule, they don’t have to juggle year from year.
Scheduling should not be a problem in Harford County families. All of the elementary school half days are posted on the school system webpage months in advance of the school year.
How far in advance do you need those dates harfordcountymom? If you scroll back up all 10 dates for the coming year, all on fridays are listed.
Do you calendar?
I don’t need advance notice because my kids are in middle school and high school. I volunteer at the elementary school where my kids went. I spend at least 12 hours a week helping out, on top of working a full time job. My concern is the learning day and short changing our kids.
Then why did you even bring up “WELL in advanced” in your second paragraph?
Because I feel that HCPS, as a whole, doesn’t give parents enough notice on A LOT of different issues.
Funny how parenting has shifted to blaming the public school system for inconveniences and changes.
Who’s going to tie juniors shoe laces at school? Oh I know, we need to hire 500 shoe lace compliance facilitators to roam the halls and tie kids shoes for them
If parents would do their job as a parent and take the time to teach their kids how to tie shoes, hold a pencil, hold scissors, introduce them to colors, the ABC’s, and numbers INSTEAD of sitting then in front of a TV or video game system it would be beneficial to a lot of people.
Also, the “shoe lace compliance facilitators” would not touch a kids shoelaces because 75% of the time the shoe laces are wet (if you know what I mean).
I take it that the ones attacking the parents are in no way affected by yet another change. A half an hour once a month out of an adults life isn’t that big of a deal. Work schedules can be adjusted. Parents are accustomed to juggling schedules. In the 2010/11 school year there were 9 2 1/2 days. In 2012/13 there were 10. This year it it 10 days with a 3 hour early dismissal.
I have volunteered in a class room and a lot is done in that half hour. As it is they rely on peer teaching to help them cover the material. Peer teaching translates to the kid who “got” it teaching it to the one who didn’t. That sounds great on paper maybe but in the classroom I witnessed a lot of frustration on the part of the kids. Teacher don’t have to time to cover what material they have to get through and kids suffer.
I just attended the back to school event last night. We are expected to have out children at the door ready to learn at 8:30 (class start at 9). They stress how important that we do this so that the kids can hit the books running as soon as the bell rings. They even do morning announcements before 9 so that no class time is lost. They crack down on tardiness because it’s not “just” 5 minutes. Class time is very important. Oh but the 8 HOURS of class time we are taking isn’t really a big deal.
So if parents are upset by this, please don’t judge us. We are concerned for our kids and agree with the school that class time is important.
Thank you
A comment for the ones who are trying to figure out where I got 8 hours. This coming year equals 30 hour. Last year equaled 25 hours. The 2010 year equaled 22.5. So I stand corrected it is “only” 7 1/2 hours difference. Give an inch and lose a mile. When services to our children and the elderly keep getting cut, we all lose.
So what is your solution?
They need to stop having half days for elementary school students then they don’t have to figure out the bus situation. Kindergarten children have the highest average of colds a year. Elementary children miss more days due to illness than Middle or High school students. This really can’t be fixed. Basically during the time that they are getting the building blocks of the rest of the education they are to receive, they already have less class hours. Why are we cutting into that time? I’d really like to know how the middle school teachers and high school teachers carve out planning time during the day. If elementary classes need that much extra planing and development time, then extend the school year. Hire more teachers. In other countries children go to school year round and go to school 4 days a week. Problem solved. A whole day for planning every week.
The other thing I’d suggest is that parents put time into the schools. Working parents have to take time off work for these early dismissals. I’d rather see a system where the lost work hours could be used to fix the problem.
Extending the school year or hiring more teachers costs money. Weren’t about a hundred teachers positions eliminated this year? Where is the money going to come from?
Aberdeen Mom,
Would you really like to understand the difference btw Elementary & Secondary scheduling or are you just on a rant? You really have no clue, do you?
One more comment I need to make. Try to pick your child up early. Anything over 29 minutes was marked as a half day absence at my child’s school. I brought in the student handbook and asked them to explain why my daughter who hadn’t missed a day of school in the 1st qtr had 4 half day absences on her report card. Official doctor notes were turned in and she was signed out at 2:50 for all 4 appointments. I was told that as a title one school they are under stricter rules than what was in the HCPS handbook. Try explaining that to your child who carried on and stayed in class rather than risk her perfect attendance. I didn’t even know she was hurt until she got home and I took her to the ER. We even worked it out with the physical therapy so that she’d only miss the last half hour of school. It was a great lesson for my daughter in how the world really works. The rest of the year every time she felt sick she wanted to stay home.
Try working WITH the school to help it get out of Title 1 or maybe at least get out of the way. It would seem that your child knows to make such a big deal over being marked 1/2 day absent is because of the attitude they see & hear from you.
If there’s a valid reason for being out I’m sure that no one is faulting you for taking your child early. The staff is not singling you out. If you need to leave early 4 days in one quarter, that’s not perfect attendance AND you have disrupted the rest of the class 4 times. If you’re taking up the front office’s time trying to cheat your darling into a meaningless recognition by bullying the staff then I’d suggest you sign up for therapy now.
The school puts an extreme amount of pressure on the students to have a perfect attendance record. It was enough pressure that my daughter didn’t report being injured, an injury that needed immediate attention. She was told by the school if she went home it would count against her. They need the kids who attend regularly to balance out the kids who don’t. She was told she would be recognized at a special assembly for perfect attendance. We were invited to the assembly. Then as they called the names she was left sitting alone while the others got applauded. 8 year olds do take that personally. She was upset but it gave me the chance to teach her not to look to outside sources to feel good.
I work with the school to make it better. I give of my time , something I think parents should be required to do. I’m part of the solution. Are you? It’s a disgrace that our schools aren’t funded properly. It’s a disgrace that more people aren’t moved to do something about it.