CSD send out this email blast late yesterday…
Dear CSD Families,
At the February school board meeting, Dr. Edwards and the Board of Education discussed the lost instructional time due to inclement weather this semester. Dr. Edwards charged a team of instructional and operational staff to devise a plan to add 30 minutes of instructional time per day before testing season begins.
The team weighed many factors including instructional schedules, athletic practices and games, bus schedules, after school programs and clubs, testing dates, free and reduced breakfast mandates and more. The team also considered communication from parents and students expressing concern as well as communication in support of the additional 30 minutes.
Please see the schedule below for the new start and end times for all 8 of our schools in theCity Schools of Decatur. This schedule will begin on Monday, March 3 and end on Friday, May 2. Should there be additional school closings due to extreme weather conditions, City Schools of Decatur may choose to extend the new schedule through the end of the 2013-2014 school year.
Parents and students will receive communication about specific school-based plans during the week of February 24. Coaches and after school club and activity sponsors will send additional communications about their programs. After school childcare providers will contact parents separately from district communications.
Morning bus routes will not be affected by the new morning bell schedule. Students should be at the bus stop at their usual time in the morning. Afternoon bus routes will be affected by the new afternoon bell schedule. Parents should add the additional time to the current bus drop-off schedule in the afternoon. Questions concerning the bus schedule should be directed to Simone Elder, Director of Transportation, at [email protected] .
As previously communicated, students will also make up two inclement weather days on March 10 (previously a teacher workday) and May 29 (the new last day of school). Post-planning for teachers is now Friday, May 30.
Thank you for continued support of City Schools of Decatur.
| School | Old Time | New Time- March 3 through May 2 |
| College Heights Pre-K | 8:00-2:30 | 7:55-2:55 |
| Clairemont Elementary | 8:10-2:40 | 8:05-3:05 |
| Glennwood Elementary | 8:00-2:30 | 7:55-2:55 |
| Oakhurst Elementary | 8:00-2:30 | 7:55-2:55 |
| Winnona Park Elementary | 8:00-2:30 | 7:55-2:55 |
| 4/5 Academy at F.AVE | 7:45-2:30 | 7:45-3:00 |
| Renfroe Middle School | 8:40-3:40 | 8:25-3:55 |
| Decatur High School | 8:30-3:30 | 8:15-3:45 |
Let me get these out of the way for everyone so we don’t have to rehash it all:
1. Phyllis Edwards is out of her mind.
2. Why couldn’t they just take the days from spring break?
3. What about the kids in after-school sports and activities?
4. My kid is already exhausted at the end of the day. She’ll have to go to bed at 5:30 every night.
5. This is really inconvenient for me.
6. If they are going to set aside make-up days in the calendar, then they should USE them!
7. I’m a student at DHS and this will leave a scar on my psyche.
8. Phyllis Edwards has a secret agenda to increase school hours and/or go to year-round schooling.
Did I capture all the potential responses?
Nope. You forgot mine:
9. Sounds great to me. Maybe it sucks for some of you folks who chose to breed like rabbits and now regret the sacrifices you have to make but this works out just fine and dandy for me.
When are your triplets due?
Shut. The. Blank. Up!
I think you forgot: implications to IB program
I’m actually expecting a ton of positive comments. All the parents who complained about being home with their own kids during inclement weather — they just got thirty more minutes of free babysitting! And, sorry, you left off the most important one — why didn’t they use two days of the Feb break since they were designated as make-up days?
See #6.
There is no rule six!
So how does this work for the teachers & staff – do they recv any compensation for the extra 30 minutes per day? In talking with another teacher in another local public system about this change, she mentioned she would expect to be compensated for the extra time. I had made an assumption that salary was salary no matter what the schedule was or had to be revised too. This teacher did not think so.
Nah, they’ll be paying back all that bonus vacation time they enjoyed during the winter storms. (I’m sure I read that on one of these threads.)
Did you ask that teacher if they gave back their pay on the days of school that were canceled? Seems to me it would work both ways.
Wouldn’t want this teacher teaching my child.
They were already paid. Teachers and staff are paid for the total number of days worked (school days and teacher work days). That total is divided over 12 months and paid monthly (or biweekly as in CSD) Which all means teachers don’t get paid for spring/winter breaks, summer break, or days off like Labor Day even though they may get paycheck a during those times. It also means any snow day was compensated so make up days are not paid in addition to it, those are just making up the time that was already contracted and paid out.
The teachers got paid for the time they were home on the snow days. I would assume it all works out. I think the extra 30 minutes is great! I’m so glad they made the adjustment to the morning start for RMS as well. Great job CSD! I’d much rather do this than add to the end of the year!
Don’t understand how the school is starting earlier BUT they say that the morning bus will run at the same time. I am confuzzled.
How this is easier than just adding 2 days again??? I just don’t get. It seems like a lot of extra time, energy and coordination than just adding a 2-3 full days. BIG thumbs down on this one.
Tests wag the dog. Any additional days would have come long after May exams.
Love the earlier Renfroe start time. Wish they would keep that, though I know there are many moving pieces involved in determining start times.. I’ll be happy to see the backside of my grumpy sixth grader heading out fifteen minutes earlier than usual, if only for two months.
Eek.
Am I the only one bothered by the reason given for this?
“before testing season begins.” – they are so worried about test scores
I get all the parents whose kids are in after school programs not worried about this at all but for the rest of us it is not so easy to alter commitments, activities and schedules on a whim.
Hope this is a short term solution and not a long term plan!
For High school students, it is important that their subjects are taught before their AP and end of course tests.
That makes sense for High School but why add that time for Pre-K thru 8th?
Also when I was in high school we missed a few days because of snow and they extended school and moved testing dates
You can’t move the AP dates. They are set nation-wide.
A little off topic, but I wonder how all those extremely successful northeast high schools get their students into competitive colleges when they don’t start until after Labor Day and end somewhere around the 10th of June … and AP tests/SATs, etc on on the same date nationwide. Are their kids just smarter than ours?
Are they Atlanta Public Schools?
I can live with this. Glad they didn’t add all the time to the end of the day for DHS and RMS.
Irrespective of whether the 30 minute plan is good, I already struggle to get from FAVE to Clairemont in time to pick up a second grader. Why didn’t they uniformly add time to each school’s day (or morning). I’ll be picking up #2 from the office instead of the car rider line. While it should be possible to get from one side if town to the other (2-3 miles) in 5 minutes, it just isn’t.
Ever ask yourself why you have to go across town at all? Because we have a special school for 4 and 5th grade in the SW corner of the city. That’s why. The real question for CSD is why we have a 4-5 school at all.
If you are a CoD resident, you may be able to still turn in a transportation form for a bus for your FAVE kid–hopefully they will be accommodating.
There’s strengths and weaknesses to the 4/5 concept. A weakness is that it’s not flexible infrastructure. When there’s changes to schedules or enrollment, a dedicated 4/5 adds one more thing to adjust.
Why not use the buses? I still fail to understand why so many people drive their kids to school. I know FAVE has an extremely early start time, but it is still possible to catch the bus. Ours was catching the bus at 6:50, but she is young and resilient and went to bed early. It is so much more environmentally friendly (and stress-free) to have a handful of buses carting kids around than hundreds of cars.
Agreed. However, I know many parents who believe that they would not be good parents if they did not personally drive their children to school. Silliness if you ask me.
Funny. I actually suffer with the opposite. I feel like I’m failing in my role as a parent any time I do give a perfectly unnecessary ride to school.
+1
Same, here, Scott. And after a childhood of walking to school, my oldest offspring, now in the upper grades, gets offended by the idea of a ride to school – would rather walk in the rain and cold than ride with ol’ pops – as if I’m trying to stifle independence. So that is fine with me, really, too.
I’m sure the non-bus riders have different reasons for using or not using the bus, but for Clairemont, I’m too close to the school, but across very busy 4 lane. For FAVE, the bus comes ridiculously early, and I can drop him off on my way to work (which I have to get in the car for anyway).
You can still use the bus for rides home if you drop him at school, so it may work out for you. Not that I am telling you how you should do it, but in case you were unaware that riding the bus one way is an option.
Just saw that Gwinnett County Schools are copying us. They’ve announced: “A combination of snow make-up days and an extension to the school day will address missed instructional time.”
And the Cartersville School System has decided to make up some of its snow days with Saturday classes. From Patch: ” The school board decided Monday night it would adjust the school calendar to make up three of the seven days lost to ice and snow in January and February. Two of those days are Saturdays: March 15 and 22. The other makeup day is March 14, previously scheduled as a teacher workday.”
Meanwhile neither Cobb nor Cherokee school systems are going to make up any of the missed days.