Parents in Harford County Public Schools have grumbled for years about the days off scattered throughout the school calendar, and inclement weather makeup days that sometimes cut into spring break. Following a recommendation Monday by Interim Superintendent Barbara Canavan, the Harford County School Board is considering a 2014-15 school calendar that consolidates days off and reschedules inclement weather makeup days, creating a weeklong Thanksgiving break for students, and a predictable spring break for parents and staff.
Representing the HCPS Calendar Committee, Manager of Communications Teri Kranefeld explained the benefits of the proposal for Thanksgiving week, which adds Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to the typical break on Thursday and Friday: “It removes some of those scattered days within the calendar to allow for more full weeks of school.”
Board member and former Baltimore County Public Schools teacher Bob Frisch concurred: “Being in the classroom, believe me, it’s extremely difficult to get any momentum and any consistency in instruction when you have these repeated breaks in schedule…”
While students would have no school during Thanksgiving week in the proposed calendar, teachers would have staff development days Monday through Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday off.
Kranefeld said in a follow-up email to The Dagger that scheduling two of the staff development days in November instead of the usual January would ultimately be more effective for staff, because the January days were often lost to inclement weather and rescheduled to year end.
In addition to the above changes, Kranefeld said that parents on the Calendar Committee suggested adding an extra eight days at the end of the required 180 days of school, providing wiggle room when days are lost to inclement weather. If any or all of the extra days turn out to be unnecessary, they can be dropped from the calendar as the end of the school year approaches. The change would replace the longstanding practice of shortening spring break when necessary to make up for lost days.
Kranefeld explained via email Tuesday:
“The thought behind this new recommendation was to provide a clearer, more concrete expectation for parents with regard to spring break and the end of the year. With this proposal, parents and staff can be assured that spring break will not be changed, regardless of weather, and that the last day of school will be Friday, June 19th, minus any unused snow days.”
The proposed 2014-15 calendar appears below and is posted on the school system’s Web site for public comment. A Board vote on the calendar is planned for December 16th.
Please note: Testing days for students, indicated in yellow, could change due to the implementation of PARCC tests in the 2014-15 school year. Kranefeld said that the state testing window has not yet been finalized and further guidance is pending from the Maryland State Department of Education.
The small red rectangles signify the end of each marking period.
Hey School Board: The people want bus transportation for their kids
HCPS has school bus transportation. You want better? You say “the people,” which people? Is there a list somewhere?
Better go fight for funding if you want better transportation because if things stay the way they are it is going to get worse!
I hope all these people wanting restoration of school bus transportation were paying attention to yesterdays Council Council meeting where Mr. Boniface said county revenue was going in the wrong direction and expenses are increasing. You better get out to Mr. Craig’s budget input session on the 25th and let him know you want more money for the school system. If not there is a good chance there will be even more unhappy parents after the school board has to make cuts. And why is it that the same people voicing their complaints at school board meeting never seem to show up at County Council meetings?
Why we just get away with school transportation? We would have so much more money to spend on adminstration! According to the transportation office, parents are responsible to get the kids safely to the bus stop or school. If it is okay for some parents to drive their kids to school than it should be okay for ALL parents to do so. No more whining and everyone would be treated equal. And those who has the right that transportation are supplied to them could be handled by the county and the law certainly does not say it has to be free. So those parents would pay a fee. This way, we cut the entire office of transportation out of the budget! I guess that is in the secret transportation study, which I really want to see one day after I have heard about it so often.
Yeah! Right on! But let’s not stop there (no pun intended). Let’s do the same thing with everything! Let’s do away with the media centers in all the schools! Because after all, there are public libraries the kids can use. Or, if kids want to use a school library, let the parents of those kids pay a fee to use it. nd what’s with this “computers in the schools” thing? Where is the law that says schools need to have computers? Most kids have computers at home. Why use tax dollars? If kids want to use computers at school, let those parents pay a fee. And hey, why heat the classrooms when kids can just put on a sweater or a coat? Parents, you want heat? Pay a fee. Went to see the school nurse? Pay a fee. Talked to the guidance counselor? Pay a fee. Want a teacher to respond to your email? Pay a….no wait, THAT should be free.
Now THAT’s funny, right there! Of course, you run the risk of people thinking you are serious! There’s that need for a Sarcasm font again!
I hope for all other parents, they won’t do that. Currently, I put about $200 dollars less into my kids college funds, because that is about the money I loose each month because of the bus depot. The money now covers gas and extra money for groceries as I have to go locally buying groceries instead on the way home from work. Not to talk about the lost time on the road for drop off and pick up for one child missing out on parenting the younger children.
take it up with the people who control the money!
If Mr. Craig had recommended the level of funding the school system needed, or the County Council made the adjustments after they received the budget from the County Executive, you and others would not be facing these issues.
The transportation study was mentioned during the last BOE meeting. It was said it will be presented at one of the December meetings.
If the 1/2 days were made into full days then the end of the school year could be moved up to the 12th of June for inclement weather. No inclement weather then school should let out June 5th.
Right now, Harford County has way to many days off every other month. A week for Thanksgiving; Christmas and Spring break with a few in between is enough. This way families don’t have to worry about trying to find babysitters through the original scattered days off that Harford County normally has. This way the children can have more of a summer vacation too if half days are tuned into full days.
If the half days are turned into full days off then they will not count toward the 180 days the kids need to be in school. So they will have to be placed somewhere else in the schedule.
Half days count as full days…it wouldn’t change the calendar.
That’s the problem with most parents you think the school is your daycare.
Actually, the problem is that my employer expects me to be at work on Friday afternoons. Employers can be funny like that, where they think the job is more important than family. But since I do need a job to live, I kind of have to take it seriously.
Anyway, since you’ve obviously conducted a scientific poll to conclude that the number of parents who think school is their daycare is greater than 50%, could you include me in the percentage of parents who don’t think that? I mean, it can be a challenge to find a once-a-month-on-a-Friday-afternoon-while-I’m-at-work sitter for my child, especially since I have no family living in the area, and it would certainly be a relief to not have to worry about it each month, but that does not logically infer that I believe “school is my child’s daycare”. So yes…definitely put me down as one of the parents who doesn’t think that.
Well that sucks for you but the school system should not care in the least how their schedule impacts “daycare”. Their schedule should be in the best interest of student learning, their staff, and using resources efficiently. The half days for elementary students count as full days and provide their teachers with the time they need to plan, grade, and collaborate. If you don’t like it, you could put your children in private schools! 🙂
I’m not sure, but I think you are responding to me? If so, please re-read my statement. I’m in the percentage who doesn’t believe school is my kid’s daycare. In other words, daycare for my kid is my responsibility. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s not an inconvenience, mind you, but it also doesn’t mean that I expect the school system to cater to me personally. I don’t think I in any way suggested that.
BTW…I’ve seen you a lot on threads regarding HCPS and teachers, and you’ve been very critical. Interesting that you are suddenly so supportive of HCPS policies when they inconvenience the teachers. But hey, whatever, right? We’ll just keep that quote in mind: “If you don’t like it, you could put your children in private schools”. It might come in handy at a later date!
I should clarify…what I meant was that teachers who have children in school are also inconvenienced by the policies of their employer, so it is not just an inconvenience to those outside the system.
1/2 days are only for elementary school. As was said it counts as a day of school.
Making up snow days at the end of the school year does not help the students who need to sit for an AP test in May. It appears that family vacation time is more important than having students do well on these much publicized tests.
I had a ton of snow days my senior year and not all got made out and I still got a 4 on the Physics BC, 5 on the AP Euro, 5 on the AP Bio test. A motivated children will not be stopped by a few snow days!
lulz – you definitely screwed up the grammar and syntax portions though…
@Smart AP kid
You are smart indeed!
While I can appreciate your point of view there are well over 30 thousand other kids in the school system to think about than just those taking AP courses. See comments made by Smart AP kid.
The school system should not care about babysitting arrangements! Get over yourselves
All my acronyms of achievements have shown me that I am truely great.
We should as noted above, and based on my years of greatness remove HCPS school bus transportation completely and treat all students equally by letting their parent or guardian safely get them to the front doors of their school. Yes, I make a lot of money, and this is the correct thing to do.
Now if you could only spell “Truly” correctly
The Money Tree, is that you?
It’s a joy to find someone who can think like that
With the way the holiday schedule is set, there is no doubt that test scores will be down between Thanksgiving and Christmas and then again after the holidays. I can tell that parents that like vacations had a hand in setting this schedule and not administrators.
I would like to know the true purpose of staff development days. As a former teacher I was exposed to “staff development. ” All I can say is that administrators create work for teachers to keep them busy on these days or the the teachers, who are supposed to be the ones that are being trained, actually are the ones who produce and present the training. Where are the benefits to teachers?
You already stated the true purpose of staff development: administrators create work to keep teachers busy. Which in turn of course, both justifies the need for administrators (“we need someone to plan staff development!”) and when it is over, proves that the administrator actually did something. When the staff development activities are run by teachers, the administrator still did something: they delegated.
Staff development jokes are the single biggest joke/waste of money in the school system. You are also correct in that they seem to be more of a “job justification” for administrators than any type of beneficial learning for teachers. The public should see the amount of teachers that just call in sick those days because they are so pain stakingly boring and often times held 20 or 30 minutes further away than their normal teaching assignments. Instead of a “raise” just delete those 10 days from the calendar!
Why not add Veterans Day to the list of Holidays the kids get off? I mean we celebrate Columbus Day (why) and Martin Luther King (when only 1/2 of the kids in HCPS are black….). We live in a community with a huge military presence and I find it appalling that our kids have to go to school on Veterans Day!
Just to let you know, school is not closed on Columbus Day.
I agree with you about Veterans Day. As a teacher and an Army veteran, I am appalled not so much that schools are not closed, but that there is virtually no formal recognition of this day, no ceremonies or special presentations to show honor and respect. When asked, many of my students don’t know that it IS Veterans Day, let alone know what it is about. This holiday is not about politics or religion or honoring individuals; it’s the holiday we have SO THAT we can have political discourse, religious diversity, and individual achievement. It’s time our schools, as civic institutions, take an an active role in teaching the younger generations about how our freedoms came to be, and to honor those who protected and continue to protect them…and us.
Ok. I’m all finished now. Time to step down from the podium!
Yes, and unfortunately most teachers do nothing on the legally mandated Constitution Day, nor do administrators do anything to encourage their teachers to do so.
My wife had her kids write about if they thought the the law requiring it was constitutional. Why or why not! Additionally it only requires some activity not the whole day.
At least your wife did something. I know of instances where isolated teachers may do something relative to the Constitution but in many schools absolutely nothing concerning the Constitution is taught on that day.
To comply with the law a school need only do a morning announcement. Besides it is an unfunded mandate and in 8th grade it doesn’t even fit with the curriculum at the time since they do the constitution a month later!
At least if schools made mention of Constitution during announcements that would be something. But that is a far cry from the intent of the legislation. It doesn’t cost anything to incorporate something about the Constitution into your lessons that day. It is not uncommon for teachers to deviate from the curriculum when appropriate.
The provision is unconstitutional. The federal government does not have rhat authority
I’m one of those not in favor of the change in Thanksgiving break. I understand that it’s the ‘traveling holiday’ and people hate the traffic to get to family but turning Wednesday into a full day off instead of early dismissal should be enough to give those that travel the ability to leave Tuesday night. Monday and Tuesday off are really unnecessary…Plus professional development at that time of the year doesn’t really make sense…it’s not the end of the quarter when the time could be used to close out grades and do some productive work, so I’m anticipating deadly sessions of common core or writing and re-writing SLO’s or anything our administration can convince faculty members to ‘present’.
It would be nice to know that the schedule is set and snow days won’t be taken from spring break-I always have students absent those days whose parents made travel arrangements far in advance that couldn’t be changed once those days were ‘taken back’ for snow.
As for the people complaining about day care arrangements…. we are not your ‘regular daycare’ even though many of you treat us like we are and on those required professional days teachers are also scrambling for day care for their children just like everyone else. I have a co-worker who takes turns with whether she or her husband calls in sick on PD days because they have no daycare for their kids. Personally, I’d rather have 5 PD days at the beginning of the year (when I really need it to get ready for the new year) and 5 at the end (when I can close out the year without throwing things in closets because the custodians are already breaking down my room to do the floors!) with no breaks in the school year other than standard holidays.
The truth is professional development days are usually a waste of time, the product delivered is of questionable value or not relevant to what I can use in the classroom.
I can’t think of more than 5…if that…PD days in my tenor at HCPS that I have walked out of there saying, “Wow”. The last PD on Nov. 1st. had K teachers arguing about what they wanted changed…first grade teachers were spending their days at Harford Glen, and another grade level spend their time learning what a good lesson plan looks like. Really??? A total waste!!
In your “tenor” at HCPS? Were you a choral director?
You are an A hole
Everyone knows the real money tree only posts when she is at work on her government supplied computer and internet connection.
I’m convinced you people will bitch about anything.