Early Dismissal Days Next School Year

[Kristine Pagsuyoin]

Early Release letter.jpg (114.63 KiB) Viewed 2642 times

Is this what parents and the community expressed what they wanted during the Community Conversations?

[Corey Rossen]

Glad to hear of this step involving the Board, teachers and innovative development approaches. Win, win, win. Plus a win for the students and a win for the parents sending them into Lakewood's classrooms. Win x 5 is always good.

I hope it is well received because it sounds like a great future for everyone involved.

Corey

[Bill Call]

Here is the schedule for the entire school year:

http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/201 ... elease.pdf

[Matthew Lee]

Honestly, not a huge win for us.

1) We liked the couple of four day weekends so we could plan some trips. No big deal, but not as good as this new schedule.

2) What happens to the last hour of class for the kids? Meaning, our daughter is in middle school and the last hour (at least in 6th grade) was the same. Does she now miss an hour of science/math/whatever each time there is early dismissal? Not sure of the answer.

3) Glad we are not in these shoes, but it has to be harder for single/dual working parents to contend with this early dismissal each month.

Anyways, those are my initial thoughts. Feel free to agree/disagree as warranted.

[Sandra Donnelly]

2) What happens to the last hour of class for the kids? Meaning, our daughter is in middle school and the last hour (at least in 6th grade) was the same. Does she now miss an hour of science/math/whatever each time there is early dismissal? Not sure of the answer.



When I was at the high school, we would design a special schedule of shortened class periods or alternate a the period to be eliminated in order to prevent students from missing the same class on a repeated basis. (Lunch periods were never affected by these schedule adjustments.)

[Betsy Voinovich]

Honestly, not a huge win for us.

1) We liked the couple of four day weekends so we could plan some trips. No big deal, but not as good as this new schedule.

2) What happens to the last hour of class for the kids? Meaning, our daughter is in middle school and the last hour (at least in 6th grade) was the same. Does she now miss an hour of science/math/whatever each time there is early dismissal? Not sure of the answer.

3) Glad we are not in these shoes, but it has to be harder for single/dual working parents to contend with this early dismissal each month.

Anyways, those are my initial thoughts. Feel free to agree/disagree as warranted.

Hi Matt--

1.) It looks like there are still extra days off in the schedule, in addition to the early dismissal days. I would need this school year's calendar to compare--- Our family also likes the extra time off, but it looks like it's still in there which would mean our kids are losing school time? They aren't allowed to lose school time right? Isn't there a state law that governs that? I don't know, hoping someone else has more information.

2.) I guess they will do something like what Sandy is describing in her post, and rotate the classes that get missed?

3.) Yeah it's going to be harder for working parents. That's an extra hour of day care that they get to pay for every other week-- so in a way, they are already having a tax levied on them. Or if hourly-wage workers have to miss that hour, that's two hours lost a month. When the levy comes up, some people will consider that they already have been paying.

I really don't like that we didn't hear about this idea at the Community Meetings and that we didn't hear about it at the Board meeting when reductions were discussed. It has a direct effect on our children, their education, and our families.

Corey-- can you describe the win-win of this in more detail? It's hard for me to understand. Our teachers will be going every other week for one hour of teacher development at a time?

I'm sure this will be talked about more and it will all become clear.

Betsy Voinovich

[Missy Limkemann]

The only thing I don't like is that there is only a 5 minute time difference from high school to elementary school. There is no way for me to get my oldest from highschool and shoot over to the elementary school in time. My oldest is special needs and I drive him and pick him up...my youngest also requires me to drive.
Will have to look at car-pooling those days...

[Corey Rossen]

Corey-- can you describe the win-win of this in more detail? It's hard for me to understand. Our teachers will be going every other week for one hour of teacher development at a time?

I always think that progress is a good thing. In my understanding, there will be focus on helping teachers stay current and up to date in terms of technological uses, instructive approaches and cross-refences on what has helped other teachers, school systems and students advance. I see this as keeping school staff on and ahead of the curve rather than recaping a year at a time only to be a year behind upon the next recap. I know that Lakewood already has great teachers, teaching practices and policies - what could be better than to improve upon something that is working so well. I feel this will not detract from the well-oiled machine, only add more to the output. I, as a parent, am very assured that when I drop my son/daughters off at school they will be well instructed so this only encourages me to look forward to what they will be learning everyday from here on out. I am excited to know that the BOE is well vested, and forward thinkers, in working with teachers, parents and students while helping my children learn.

I also understand that any change in the time schedule will create inconveniences for some, as the current system also has inconveniences for others. There will always be an issue in terms of satisfying all people's schedules, I don't see a way to ever circumnavigate that.

Corey

[Bill Call]

Here is the schedule for the entire school year:

http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/201 ... elease.pdf

My, my, my... Someone deleted the calendar. Why would they do that? I should have printed a copy while I had the chance.

I guess one picture is worth a thousand words.

[Lauren Flynn]

Here is the schedule for the entire school year:

http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/201 ... elease.pdf

My, my, my... Someone deleted the calendar. Why would they do that? I should have printed a copy while I had the chance.

I guess one picture is worth a thousand words.

Bill,

The early release days were added to the amended calendar for 2012-2013, they weren't just simply erased. See here: http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/cal ... mended.pdf

These days are part of a greater effort to address the sanctions placed on the district for not meeting the requirements of NCLB. Though the district has met state indicators, we have not met AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) for some of our subgroups. For example, because some of refugee populations are not passing the OGT, NCLB has mandated that the district follow certain steps to address this. It is my personal belief that regardless of these steps, it is next to impossible to teach these students how to speak English and pass the OGT in one year. Many of these students come to us without knowing how to speak, read, or write a single word in English. Most of them also are not able to read or write in their native language, and many have not had any formal education. NCLB does not take any of this into account, and yet we are supposed to have 100% of students meeting requirements by 2014. Does this sound realistic to you?


Disclaimer: All views expressed in this forum are my own, and do not represent the views of Lakewood High School or Lakewood City Schools.

[Lauren Flynn]

Hi Matt--

1.) It looks like there are still extra days off in the schedule, in addition to the early dismissal days. I would need this school year's calendar to compare--- Our family also likes the extra time off, but it looks like it's still in there which would mean our kids are losing school time? They aren't allowed to lose school time right? Isn't there a state law that governs that? I don't know, hoping someone else has more information.


Betsy Voinovich

Betsy-

The previous professional development days came out of the regular calendar, so students are not losing any instructional time with the early release days. As a teacher, it makes more sense to me to have professional development ongoing throughout the year, rather than lumped into two days. In addition to this, the District and the Lakewood Teacher's Association agreed to add two additional instructional days to the 2012-2013 calendar, and two additional instructional days to the 2013-2014 calendar. Overall, students will have more instructional time with teachers who are up to date on the most current philosophies, methods, and technologies.


Disclaimer: All views expressed in this forum are my own, and do not represent the views of Lakewood High School or Lakewood City Schools.

[Bill Call]

Here is the schedule for the entire school year:

http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/201 ... elease.pdf

My, my, my... Someone deleted the calendar. Why would they do that? I should have printed a copy while I had the chance.

I guess one picture is worth a thousand words.

Many of these students come to us without knowing how to speak, read, or write a single word in English. Most of them also are not able to read or write in their native language, and many have not had any formal education.

I wasn't commenting on the failures of the school system. I was just wondering where the calendar went. A list of days off does not provide the same visual impact and same level of information as the graphic that was available.

I was also wondering who made the decision to remove the calendar and why they made that decision. Do I have to make a public records request or will someone restore the deleted file?

[Lauren Flynn]

I wasn't commenting on the failures of the school system. I was just wondering where the calendar went. A list of days off does not provide the same visual impact and same level of information as the graphic that was available.

I was also wondering who made the decision to remove the calendar and why they made that decision. Do I have to make a public records request or will someone restore the deleted file?

Bill,

I understand your point regarding the visual impact of the previous graphic as the amended calendar does not do the same. You can still find those days listed separately in the copy of the parent letter (the same letter that Kristine Pagsuyoin posted to initiate this forum topic) that was posted on the website here: http://lakewoodcityschools.org/district ... artID=1616
It is the last link. Not as handy as the original .pdf that was on the home page, but you can still access a list of the days. I know that there are plans to change the website this summer, and perhaps it was a matter of streamlining. This is just a guess though.



Disclaimer: All views expressed in this forum are my own, and do not represent the views of Lakewood High School or Lakewood City Schools.

[Christine Gordillo]

As I am responsible for posting the calendar to the web site, hopefully I can clear the issue of the disappearing calendar up for Mr. Call.

I had received complaints from parents that the original amended calendar that contained the early release dates and the "visual" dates as Mr. Call refers to was not printer friendly. It was created by someone else in excel in a wide format that I reduced to an 8.5 x 11 PDF for posting. By reducing it, the text was too small for parents to read when they printed it. So, I deleted the "visual" to be able to enlargen the text. This was done only to accommodate parents asking for a more printer-friendly version, not to lessen the impact of the number of early release days.

Regarding the file being missing, I am guessing that Mr. Call tried to click on the file between the time the original file was deleted and the new file uploaded. Just an odd coincidence as that amount of time is probably a couple minutes.

Hope that clears up the mystery.

Christine Gordillo
Communications & PR Specialist
Lakewood City Schools

[Bill Call]

http://lakewoodcityschools.org/docs/201 ... elease.pdf

?