2017-2018 Calendar to be at District Website "Soon"

Thus sayeth Superintendent Nyland at last night's Board meeting.  I would assume "soon" to mean by the end of the week.

He did say it would include holidays and breaks but probably not Early Release days.

Comments

Another NW said…
Isn't the plan to have an early release every Wednesday?
Grouchy Parent said…
Yes. They surveyed the 53,000 students' families who overwhelmingly wanted Fridays. Then, armed with that knowledge, the district decided to do it on Wednesdays. Because they felt that slightly fewer of the 3,000 teachers would play hooky from mandatory meetings held on Wednesday afternoon than on Friday afternoon. Or maybe because principals didn't want to stay "late" on Fridays. Who knows. The current plan is early release every Wednesday. Not sure why they even bothered to ask families...
Ah, but they can tick the public engagement box. The fact they ignored the overwhelming response should be of no surprise unfortunately.
Patrick said…
They need weekly meetings for all teachers? I thought my work was bad.
Grouchy Parent said…
It's time for teachers to do stuff together like lesson planning? Stuff that absolutely has to be done IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCHOOL DAY and couldn't possibly be done before school starts (like from 8:00-9:30 for tier 3 schools) or after school gets out (like from 2:15-3:45 for tier 1 schools). Nope. Teachers need to meet from 1:05-2:05 in the afternoon every Wednesday???? How could that possibly inconvenience thousands of working families? Arg!
Anonymous said…
Will this eliminate Hale's late start Tuesdays?

HP
Anonymous said…
Every.single.school??

When the bleep will we know the actual start/end times? What impact will it have for students doing Running Start part time? It is so hard to plan when every year it's a new "plan." Another year, another disruptive effort to "improve" while not really improving anything.

grrrr
Grouchy Parent said…
They're planning to start school 10 minutes earlier next year and let it out 10 minutes later. And have a one-hour (?) early release every Wednesday afternoon. I believe at every single school. But they haven't decided if we're going to be a 2-tier district or a 3-tier district, so nothing can really be decided until they work all that out.

It's crazy, though, that in all of these decisions no one seems to be representing the interests of the students' families. There's the teachers' union and the school district working things out between themselves. But who's representing the families? Why isn't what we need more important than it is? We're like a distant after thought. They can't be bothered to care about what we think. And worse than that, they can't even be bothered to communicate to us what they've decided our fates should be.

What time will school start next year? What time will it get out? What day will it get out early once a week? We don't know! Ha ha!
Grouchy, I have expressed your concern over and over. PTA is just not the group to represent families. At one point there was a group, Parents Union, but it was started by some wealthy guy and it wasn't around parent empowerment.

I honestly think a dynamic parent group is needed.
Grouchy Parent said…
Or we could just elect a school board to represent our views and best interests.... And we could have them fire educational bureaucrats who don't do what's best for this city's children. Hmmm...

Anonymous said…
The day is going to come when no teacher of merit is going to want to work for any of you.
S&T
Grouchy Parent said…
"The early release once a week will be on Wednesdays. Wednesday was the day preferred by principals and school staff. While Fridays were preferred by the majority of families and partners, mid-week collaboration better supports the SEA/SPS partnership goals."

3,500 principals and school staff prefer Wednesdays.
53,000 families prefer Fridays.

The SEA represents teachers and of course they should have representation in such matters. But who does SPS represent?
Annoyed said…
So much for the calendar.
Anonymous said…
Newbie here. Is it customary for the district calendar to be published so late? As a potential transfer from Texas, I'm incredulous that in late April I can't find a fall start date, never mind break dates for planning purposes.

Re faculty meeting times - for what it's worth, our (private) school in Texas this year implemented a late start every Friday. Students can use the time to sleep in at home or arrive to school at normal time and sit in study hall for the duration. Lots of initial grumbling from parents but honestly it's been fine.

FNH
Anonymous said…
FNH,

Seattle schools traditionally start the Wednesday after Labor Day. It is usually the breaks and the end date that changes.

HP
Lynn said…
See the bottom of the 11th page of the current SEA contract (labeled page 5) for information on the calendar.
Anonymous said…
Thanks! This blog is a wealth of information and commentary.

FNH

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