Anyone live in the messed up CA school district?

[DammitJanet]

I just saw on the national news that some school district in CA messed up some sort of reduced time fridays during the year by 5 minutes per friday and now the kids have to go to school all summer long to make up the time!

Boy does that hoover!

 

[SRL]

The stupid thing is that the missed time could be made up in 2-3 full days of school but state law requires that the full days be made up or else lose state funding. The law is written to strongly discourage districts from shaving time off the school day.

California has such budget woes that you would think someone would apply some common sense here.

on the other hand, one has to ask why the district let out early 34 times during one school year!? No wonder the state wants to discourage that nonsense.

 

[Abbey]

It's all based on government needed minutes in the classroom. Unfortuantely, places like you are talking about are in the grey area. You might have snow, fog, rain...whatever. It's not like in the MW where you are certain you are going to have a few snow days and they build them into the calendar.

Does it make sense? No. I can almost guarantee you that there are not many instructional minutes going on through those make up days. It's just all a game.


Abbey

 

[DammitJanet]

SRL....I really wondered about that. It seemed so weird that they were making them make up WHOLE days instead of making up just the 5 minutes that they missed per day. If it was only the 5 minutes per day they could do it in a day I bet! Heck it was only on Fridays and they were supposed to have 180 minutes on those days and they had 175 minutes. Huh...all this hullabaloo over 5 minutes! Shoot just say each kid had a potty break...lol.

 

[Hound dog]

oh brother.

I know it has to do with govt funding and all that. I get it. And if they let one school district get away with it, then 100 more will follow, yadda yadda.

But I'd think with CA's current financial crisis.....they could come up with a more reasonable solution. sheesh.

 

[Lori4ever]

Ca schools really do stink. You'd never believe some of what they pull!

 

[SRL]

Daisylover, that's what I thought too.

It's all based on government needed minutes in the classroom. Unfortuantely, places like you are talking about are in the grey area. You might have snow, fog, rain...whatever. It's not like in the MW where you are certain you are going to have a few snow days and they build them into the calendar.

Abbey

If it were weather-related I would understand, but the article I read said the early dismissals were for teacher preparation time and if so, 34 days of early dismissal is pretty dicey. I suppose altogether it's less than the usual teacher's inservice days in other districts, but I'll bet they had those too.

 

[Lothlorien]

Well, I think it's sad that the kids and families have to suffer, because school officials made stupid decisions. I don't know where this is, but what about the families who had vacations planned or paid for summer camp? Or the teachers who had summer jobs planned to supplement their income? I think they should make it up in a few days, with the threat that if they do it again, they will have to make up full days next time.

 

[DammitJanet]

And wouldnt this cost the school district MORE money? They said that they couldnt just make them make up the 5 minutes per day which comes up to 170 minutes or roughly one three hour day. But that they would have to make up the whole 34 days! None of the 34 days would count. Now that makes no sense to me at all. Now they have to keep the schools open for another 34 days, lunches, teachers, school staff, electric, water, etc.

Ya know...even worse, this is only 3 hours a day right? Which means the parents have to find daycare for the rest of the time. Why not go 8 hours a day and cut down the time?