Change in Wednesdays

[warriordiva]

Okay - went to freshman orientation at WVHS tonight. Am I the last person to know that the high schoolers are not doing late arrival Wednesday? They will instead be released at 2:05 on Wednesdays. I noticed that there is a message on the ipsd site dated the 10th. I don't have a problem with this, it's just, once again, where the F#$% is the communication??

[lacy]

I saw it in an email from NV sent Monday night:

"Professional Development Wednesdays: As teachers did last year, all faculty members will participate in professional development activities on Wednesdays. This year, however, those activities will take place in the afternoon. Rather than a late arrival, students will have an early dismissal every Wednesday at Main and Gold at 2:05 pm. Students who select to stay on campus for athletics or activities will have places and spaces at Main and Gold for supervised silent or group study. Teachers will meet on Wednesdays between 2:15 pm and 2:55 pm. Athletics and activities will begin afterwards."

Students who select to stay on campus for athletics or activities?

I would imagine that would be most of those kids. Kids with cars who live close will probably leave and come back - but I would think the majority would stay.

Wonder why they changed this and wonder why there was no discussion of it prior to announcing it?

[casey]

It's not so much that they changed the time to late dismissal (I think that's actually better than a late start) it's more the fact that this message has not gone out. Only if you happen to stumble across the information does a person know what's going on. Like you did, Lacy, I learned about it for the first time through Bob McBride's email. The district needs to do a much better job of communicating information to the public.

I wonder how much a late dismissal will impact sports/after school activities. I'd think that it'd be across the board meaning elementary and middle schools also will be getting out earlier and teachers staying later on Wednesdays. I haven't seen anything on that yet. Has anyone else? Given the fact that late starts/dismissals might impact ES and MS parents more (making childcare and carpool arrangements) why doesn't the district let parents know what's going on?

I'd look for a newspaper article in the Sun in the next several days. The admin/SB will read the message here that parents don't know what's going on and contact the papers to get the message out. Look for it.

[Arch]

Aug 11, 2010 6:42:10 GMT -6 lacy said:

Wonder why they changed this and wonder why there was no discussion of it prior to announcing it?

It was probably part of the same double-secret deal with DrD as the admin pay increases.

HS moves to early dismissal but ES and MS stay the same with late-start... 10 mins later start for ES and 20 mins for MS... same later bus pickups in the morning as last year for those lower levels.

[al]

Just FYI - sorry if you already saw it but it clarifies MS/ES times in addition to the HS...
As teachers did last year, faculty members across the district will participate in professional development activities each Wednesday throughout the upcoming school year. However, at the high schools, the activities will now take place in the afternoon instead of before school. Rather than a late arrival, high school students will be dismissed at 2:05 pm every Wednesday. Students who select to stay on campus for athletics or activities will have areas for supervised silent or group study. High school teachers will meet on Wednesdays between 2:15 pm and 2:55 pm. Athletics and activities will begin afterwards.

There is no change at the elementary and middle school levels. Each Wednesday morning, elementary students will begin school 10 minutes later and middle school students will start 20 minutes later. If your child rides the bus, your pick up time on Wednesdays will be 10 minutes later for elementary and 20 minutes later for middle school.

[lacy]

So the high schoolers who participate in after school activities will sit around for an hour before their activity starts. I'm betting this will not be time well spent for most.

Did they consider the best interests of students when they came up with this?

[doctorwho]

Aug 11, 2010 7:47:02 GMT -6 lacy said:

So the high schoolers who participate in after school activities will sit around for an hour before their activity starts. I'm betting this will not be time well spent for most.

Did they consider the best interests of students when they came up with this?

have they ever in decisions made ?

[doctorwho]

Aug 11, 2010 0:25:31 GMT -6 warriordiva said:

Okay - went to freshman orientation at WVHS tonight. Am I the last person to know that the high schoolers are not doing late arrival Wednesday? They will instead be released at 2:05 on Wednesdays. I noticed that there is a message on the ipsd site dated the 10th. I don't have a problem with this, it's just, once again, where the F#$% is the communication??

last survey said they are doing a great job...

[asmodeus]

So rather than giving kids a little more sleep, the admin makes the kids participating in extra-curricular activities wait around? Another brilliant manuever, dictated with no explanation or reasoning.

[EagleDad]

I think the district is missing an opportunity here.

They could make it a little more confusing/difficult if they said the start-times and end times on wednesdays were calculated by taking the number of letter in your last name/ dividing by 3, taking the remainder multiplied by 10 and adding that in minutes to the start time if the front door of your home faces north or south and subtracting it if it faces east or west. Then to be fair, they should rotate the N/S, E/W portion of the formula every other week.

[JB]

Just got a note from MVHS which stated in part " I sent a connect ed message last evening to remind families that all Wednesdays have a professional development component to them. All high school students will be dismissed at 2:05 rather than the usual 2:25 dismissal. The Commons and the Library will be available for students who wish to remain at school until their extra-curricular activity begins at 3:15."

So my Eastern time zone math says that's 70 minutes for students to be running around..... I would guess there's going to be a lot of mischief going on.

Also, what does that do for sports away games? Usually the team bus heads off right after school - at 2:25. If that's now 2:55 or 3:15, what happens? Do the coaches miss their all important "professional development component"? Do we tell the school we're visiting we'll be even later?

The only driving force I can see here is the teacher's union, upset that the HS teachers had to get up early one day a week. Please let me know if I've missed something.

So instead of letting our HS'ers sleep in (which they need), we're giving many of them 70 minutes of largely unsupervised playtime. Yeah, that makes sense

[Arch]

Don't worry, there's railroad tracks nearby to explore and make use of the time.

[EagleDad]

Aug 13, 2010 8:33:11 GMT -6 JB said:

Just got a note from MVHS which stated in part " I sent a connect ed message last evening to remind families that all Wednesdays have a professional development component to them. All high school students will be dismissed at 2:05 rather than the usual 2:25 dismissal. The Commons and the Library will be available for students who wish to remain at school until their extra-curricular activity begins at 3:15."

So my Eastern time zone math says that's 70 minutes for students to be running around..... I would guess there's going to be a lot of mischief going on.

Also, what does that do for sports away games? Usually the team bus heads off right after school - at 2:25. If that's now 2:55 or 3:15, what happens? Do the coaches miss their all important "professional development component"? Do we tell the school we're visiting we'll be even later?

The only driving force I can see here is the teacher's union, upset that the HS teachers had to get up early one day a week. Please let me know if I've missed something.

So instead of letting our HS'ers sleep in (which they need), we're giving many of them 70 minutes of largely unsupervised playtime. Yeah, that makes sense

Two words - Breakfast Club

It's not like they smoked pot or anything in that empty school with little supervision.

Oh wait, forgot about that part. Imagine what kids these days can come up with instead.