Students in Baltimore County schools may see a shorter spring or summer break because all the snow days built into the calendar have been used up — plus one, reports Liz Bowie of The Baltimore Sun. It won’t be clear until later in the year if any waivers will be granted. And even though the governor declared a state of emergency when we had the huge snowfall, that doesn’t guarantee a waiver, Bowie reported in another story.
At the risk of sounding like a whiny parent, it always kind of burns me when officials are so strict about having X number of days of school, then at the end of the year the kids are watching movies and doing other non-academic things at school. Is this mainly about money/budgets/contracts?
It’s too late to cut Spring Break! Teachers and families have already made their plans. There are choir band trips planned, etc. If they have to, they will extend the school year. Hopefully we will get a couple back since a State of Emergency was declared for the 30 in snow storm.
It is about money, as the state pays school districts for every day a student is in school, I.e. Attendance figures. That’s why the schools give parents such a hard time when we take our kids out for a few days for a family vacation, or even an extended family crisis. Used to be a note from a parent was enough, and more freedom for parents to offer experiences.
This could get worse. See comment on the previous post re: the ‘Dallas Dance’ parody Twitter account—‘Virtual School Days’ are indeed a catch phrase among proponents of “blended learning” and “all-the-time” online, tech-dependent learning–even though such days don’t work very well. So, forget those memorable snow days. Students need to prepare for the “real world,” supporters say, where work pressures now follow us 24/7… Also, more time to play the for-profit DreamBox math game and expand the data mining window….
See another example below:
http://www.nj.com/education/2014/06/nj_education_officials_deny_districts_request_for_virtual_school_day.html