CSD Asks Parents To Start Arranging Childcare, Will Make Up Early January Days Off in March and May
Decatur Metro | February 10, 2014
Consolidating a couple of different CSD announcements in a single post.
First, the school system sent out a note this morning stating they were monitoring weather reports, but that everyone should start making arrangements for childcare Tuesday-Thursday. Also the Board of Ed meeting tomorrow night has been cancelled and rescheduled for Friday, February 14th. Read the note HERE.
BTW, APS and DeKalb schools are already closed tomorrow.
Secondly, the Superintendent also announced in a separate note that early January extreme weather days will be made up on teacher workdays in March and May. Here are the details…
Please note that we are making up the extreme winter weather days of January 6 and 7. The first make-up day will be March 10, which was previously a Teacher Workday. Now we will have school for students on Monday, March 10. The second day will be Thursday, May 29 with the post-planning day moved toFriday, May 30 for teachers. Therefore, Thursday, May 29 is now the new last day of school.
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Time to consider optional-but-encouraged Saturday morning classes for those high-stakes high school classes that will have trouble getting students where they need to be now that they’ll have missed 7 school days=10 calendar days? E.g. classes that must be passed for graduation, AP classes, whatever is deemed necessary? Many students have needed to attend Saturday school even before there were extreme weather days. Teachers could get a bonus for covering anything added on to the usual Saturday school program. Students with spring athletic events every single Saturday morning wouldn’t be served by this but the rest of the students could be.
I know the option of cancelling the February or April breaks is there but I hate to affect the whole student body when many of the elementary and middle school students would do ok without those school days being made up. Optional school over those breaks? Or only the high school has to attend? Not sure those latter two options are allowed or feasible but we do seem to be in unusual circumstances this year.
Could extend the school year by a week at the end. That would help educationally but wouldn’t address the issue of scoring well on AP exams or passing EOCTs because those occur earlier.
I really hope that serious consideration is being given to cancelling Winter Break next week. I get it that some folks have made travel plans and those families should not be penalized with unexcused absences if they decide to go out of town, but we do NOT need a full week off next week.
Agreed!
April Break would be better because folks have more time to change gears plus the April Break offers 5 days whereas next week only offers 4 days. Either break has student travel trips that will be disrupted.
Alas, these are crummy choices.
I think everyone is about to have 3 days with lots of down time to contemplate how to change gears for next week.
What do you mean by “next week only offers 4 days”? They have the full week off, don’t they?
One day is a federal holiday so can’t be used for make up. Or at least I assumed so. I guess they could make the kids go to school on President’s Day. Haven’t seen that done. I guess it’s not as taboo as making the kids go to school on Christmas or Thanksgiving.
I doubt they will seriously consider it, but I wish it were possible. My middle schooler really NEEDS to be in school. He NEEDS to be able to go to tutoring and homework help on a consistent basis. During snow days I make sure he reads and does review online when possible, but it is not the same when it comes to the classes in which he’s struggling a little bit. What he DOES NOT need is missed days this week and then a week of break. It’ll just be a whole lot of catch up for him after all that time off.
My high schooler will be just fine academically but, you know, idle hands and all that.
Agreed. Besides the obvious needs to get out kids in school, although only a few days away, I think cancelling next week will interfere with less travel plans than cancelling spring break.
Wondering what scientific method you used to get to your conclusion. Almost everyone in my neighborhood has plans.
No one I know is traveling. Everyone is doing camps or babysitters or trading off.
Same here. All are doing camps of some sort for Winter and hitting the road for Spring break.
I REALLY hope teachers will email assignments, especially for middle and high school students! Maybe they will send kids home with lots of work to do over Feb. break.
That would make tons of sense.
Our travel involves unrefundable plane tickets and deposits in February and more easily changed car travel in April. So it varies by family. No good solutions.
And these are family visits, not schnapps on the slopes. When relatives are elderly and failing, a scheduled trip may be the last one.
If either break is cancelled, it will inconvenience some, hurt others financially, and be wrenching decisions for others; hopefully school absences can be foregiven. No matter what, I vote for emailed/virtual assignments/reviews to be completed during the extreme weather days and more Saturday school opportunities at DHS afterwards.
It does vary. This is actually the first Feb break that we have ever been able to do a family vacation (visiting elderly relatives too, but they happen to live near the beach) .
If we do have more bad weather days and have to make them up during Spring Break, maybe the schools could relax it’s unexcused absence policy for those days. I wouldn’t be opposed to a couple Saturday make ups, although only if teachers overwhelmingly go for it
I think extra pay/bonus should be available for unplanned extra work for the teachers. And I agree that they should have input in any decisions involving them. They may love the chance to get their students over the finish line or they may think it’s cruel and unusual punishment.
Not to seem insensitive, but I completely disagree. These are salaried employees, and they are hired to do a job (educate our children) and not just log hours behind a desk. My employer, like many, is understanding to a point, but at the end of the day I have a job to do. I don’t expect and won’t receive extra compensation or even a pat on the back if that means I have to put some hours in on the weekend because of the snow. This is becoming a huge inconvenience and burden for all of us and teachers should be treated just like everyone else. Besides, this isn’t extra work – they have had many days off, and hence, the work hasn’t been performed.
And no they shouldn’t get a say. The school leaders need to decide on a course of action (while hopefully taking into account the impact on teachers and staff along with everything else) and the employees should suck it up just like the rest of us. Sometimes life isn’t fair.
Depends on whether you want to hold onto our teachers or not. And teachers know better than senior administrators which classes and students need Saturday school and which don’t. Teachers should give input and administrators use that input in their decisions.
Input, yes. Veto power or bonus, no.
…so should part of our “clusterflake 2014 2.0″ preparations be reaching out to our teachers to see what assignments/suggested activities our kids could be working on – if this does turn into another week long weather event with school cancellations?
My high schooler had to stay home from school today due to a stomach virus. I had to send the obligatory email to each individual teacher letting each know he would not be there and please forward any assignments he would be missing. Already have one reply with assignments for the next two days and another that include assignments for the rest of the week (“in case of cancellation due to weather”). That second reply got me thinking – why not be proactive instead of waiting to see what CSD decides? I know this would be mostly for high schoolers – but maybe for RMS students (thinking of decaturmom’s situation).
+1 A few extra assignments would not have hurt my kids (Renfroe) during part 1 of Snomagdon.
I am in agreement, plus if my kids are busy doing schoolwork, I can get some work done myself.
It doesn’t look like cancelling February Break is going to happen. The email we just got from the Superintendent says that the new Board of Ed meeting is moved to Feb. 14th and that any changes to the school calendar to make up winter weather days will be taken to the Board for approval. I can’t imagine that the Board will vote on Friday to cancel a winter break scheduled to begin the very next week.
I have no idea what you people are whining and complaining about. All I want to know is how this will affect our dog grooming appointments on Wednesday
Can your pups pull a sled with you on it?
I’m sure they could. But if they saw a squirrel or a cat, I’d be in big trouble!
If you put aside 1% of your Trackside budget you could buy robot dogs who can groom themselves.
This would make sense and entitle me to silly whining if the city paid for my dogs obedience classes.
Emory is closed Tuesday.
No to Saturday school for the sake of both teachers and students. Not a good idea at all. Imagine if you had a six day work week. Would you be as productive on day 6 as on day 1? I vote for either adding a few more instructional minutes to each day, or better yet, forgive the days, RELAX, and understand winters like this come less than once every 15 years.
Many high school students CHOOSE to go to Saturday school right now. They want to do well on their AP exams.
Good for them. Some kids only go when they have too. Just make the days up at the end of the year.
But end of year is too late for AP or EOCT tests. (CRCT too if you think it has any relationship to what goes on in the classroom). That’s the bind we’re in–make up days don’t “count” if they don’t happen before these early testing events. Of course, they might actually involve real learning at the end of the year vs. test-prep learning but school systems and college-bound kids have to worry about the test results.
Let it go and stop whining. Make days are a big joke anyway.
My kid at Museum School was sent home with three days worth of school work to do. We were appreciative of that since my wife stays at home and can instruct.