From Harford County Public Schools:
State Superintendent of Schools Dr. Lillian Lowery approved the request made by Harford County Public Schools (HCPS) for a four-day waiver of the 180-day school year requirement for students. HCPS has been closed a total of 11 days this school year for inclement weather. Due to the effort put forth by HCPS to add a make-up day on April 17 (previously a spring break day), in addition to the seven days proactively built into the calendar as inclement weather makeup days, the waiver was granted. As such, one day will be removed from the end of the school year. Unless additional modifications to the school calendar become necessary, the last day for students will be Thursday, June 12. For additional information, visit www.hcps.org.
So will the teachers have to make up these days or will they simply get paid for days they did not work?
Who cares (and you’re an idiot for mentioning it!).
It wasn’t their decision to close for the inclement weather days.
Hell…..City, County, State and Federal employees had “snow days” off with pay.
Also, many employees and their bosses closed for some snow days.
Why must some of you morons ALWAYS pick on our educators?
Wow that is a lot of name calling, I am sure your mother is very proud of your ability to construct a arguement. Whatever point you tried to make was overshadowed by the name calling, but hey if it makes you feel better then I guess in your world that is all that matters.
For the future note that when it comes to money being spent that is tax money taken from me I will always question it’s use. If this is somehow troublesome to you, well then tough.
We all pay taxes ….. some more than others. Get a life.
Let me take this opportunity to interject a very important point:
If you are paid by tax dollars you are not really contributing anything to the funding of government.
Ultimately, if too many people work for the government it becomes like a banana republic except it doesn’t even produce any bananas. In other words: if government employees truly contributed wealth via there taxes then everybody could work for the government and just tax each other to pay each others salaries. Unfortunately, in short order it would take a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread.
The number one folks who should be concerned about waste, fraud and high taxes should be government employees. Unfortunately, too many think that there is some endless stream of cash coming in. On the federal level that is aided by our current printing of cash in order to keep the fat cats on Wall Street happy. Think that will go on forever?
Incidentally, the very instant that the feds cut back it will be felt in Maryland like a sharp stick in the eye. When the last high paying private sector job goes out of the state we will be left with only the government, the poor and those who could not escape. It will not be pretty.
If you are paid by tax dollars your pay is for a service you provide for the government. A teacher provides a service. A service the local government is required to provide under our state constitution. If we privatized education as some have suggested, we would still have to pay for that service. When the teacher is paid they are paid for their skills and a service. It effectively becomes their money. Would you aregued if all we did is hand out vouchers to people that the school accepting those vouchers is not contributing to the economy?
Why would the school system decide to be off on Friday, June 13th instead of this Thursday, 4/17? April 17th was not one of the scheduled make-up days and June 13th was on the original schedule for the past year. I bet many kids will be absent this Thursday due to previous travel plans for the Easter holiday.
because at the time the decision was made, over a month ago to go ahead with Thursday we had no waiver and would be going to school until June 19th. None of those where identified as days. The waiver was granted Monday. Would you prefer they change the calender two days before?
I would prefer someone in authority at HCPS would have thought these things through in advance instead of waiting until it was too late to affect change to this week’s schedule. Cecil County and others applied for waivers well before Harford County and received a timely response to change their schedules for this week. The Baltimore Sun quoted a Cecil County school official who said they wanted to give back this Thursday, 4/17 because they knew many families already had travel plans and expected a high absentee rate that day. It will be interesting to see Harford County’s absentee rate this Thursday. I wonder why Friday, 6/13 isn’t being used as a make-up day since it was planned a year ago. Thursday, 4/17 was not one of the optional make-up day until late February when the School Board voted to add it as the 8th make-up day.
Well you can be mad or deal. If you want better service you may need to pay for it.
Who said I was mad? My child is going to school Thursday, so I am dealing with this like most others.
I have heard complaints from other parents who already made travel plans and will not be sending their children to school this Thursday. I’m surprised this hasn’t been a bigger issue.
I just question the poor timing of waiting so long to request the waivers (compared to other counties) which prevented the county from even considering giving back this Thursday as it was originally scheduled to be off. Like usual, the school board will probably react after the fact when they see the absentee rate go way up tomorrow, instead of being proactive.
I suppose the real reason is that HCPS would rather have the students off on Friday, 6/13 so the teachers can make that their last day instead of having to come back for one day the following Monday.
Teachers are the first ones to complain about every little thing that doesn’t go their way. aren’t they the ones who made a big deal about “working to the contract”, doing exactly their work hours and not a minute more? Well then, what goes around comes around. Yea, they expect to be paid for days not worked. Treat them like the business world and make them use a vacation/personal day or take a no pay day. Their contract is for working a FULL school year, so work to the contract.
You sir are a delta bravo (d bag).
Ouch Money Tree, that hurt my feelings. That just proves you are an alpha hotel oscar lima echo.
They are salaried and the school year now includes 176 days or 186 days for teachers with two of those days as compensation for not providing the agreed upon negotiated steps for the last few years. I think the 2 days is a deal for you considering you would be facing an unsympethetic labor board if not!
The contract is to work a full year and it is also written with incremental salary steps that have not been given in 4 out of 5 years. I think its funny that no one in this county or on this discussion board asks a very reasonable question: Why is it that every other county and school system is able to adhere to the contract and the steps except for Harford? Why is it that a county that is one of the wealthiest in the state can’t handle its responsibilities but others including all of those that surround us can? Instead of being name callers and calling out teachers is taking away from the more egregious problem which is the mismanagement of funds not only for teachers salaries but for all other county workers. As for the “4 paid days off” there were MANY other county and state employees that had off for snow days and their employers did nothing to make those days up at least teachers were asked to go in and make up 7 of the days.
The term contract is a misnomer because the process is backwards and only becomes incendiary. The aggregate dollars needs to be given to the BOE and then have them work out a proportional budget. It is obscene to have a board of supposed educated and enlightened people constantly submit such an over budgeted and unrealistic piece of finance. So, please enlighten me why our current process will work, or am I misunderstanding the process.
Regardless of the system, the fact that we are the ONLY county in the state that manages to screw this up. It is more of a knock on the county council/exec and the Board that this system fails its students/teachers and other county employees.
Perhaps the elimination of Science and Math Academy, all AP classes, the Biomedical program and the IB program will provide the funding necessary.
Personally, I would like to see the teachers get more money and I would like to see that the contributions to their pensions be kept full. This begs the questions: where is the money currently going and is the county under taxed?
I can say that Maryland is already one of the top tax states and there is a graduated gas tax coming that will shock everyone except the politicians that voted for it. Harford County is in the middle of per capita income in the state, which does drop dramatically from the top 2 or 3.
So, can the BOE stop the everything for everyone wish list and cut it so the teachers can get more? Will the county in turn cut some pet projects so the teachers can get more in their base pay? Stay tuned.
Other school systems in Maryland are facing the same kind of funding issues we have in Harford County. It was not a unanimous vote by the school board members to send the current budget to the County Executive.
Well, maybe a few more will have a come-to-Jesus moment and we can stop the sturm und drung of “We have a contract” when all they have is a wish list. It would be nice if it were not common knowledge that the teachers vote lockstep to put the one party clowns in office down in Annapolis. The regime down there takes your last dime and your pocket lint with it while expecting the counties to find even more for the teachers. This puts the teachers in a situation of standing in a bucket trying to pull themselves up by the handle.
Your brush is too broad. I know many teachers that do not vote the Democratic ticket in elections.
Don’t reply using my name, use your own.
You own this name, bro?