GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Get rid of Mid Winter Break! It’s stupid. It wastes time. It lengthens the school year unnecessarily. It helps no one. No other school systems kept it. Why does NYC persist?

How about getting rid of mid winter break (which comes only one month before Spring break), starting school on Sept. 13, and ending school on June 24, FOUR DAY earlier than scheduled, in 2011. Oh wait, I forgot, those holidays were “bargained” for. I would think teachers and school staff would love ending the school year earlier than prolonging it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t state law mandate no classes for students in Kings and Queens Counties and the change was made by the UFT several years ago to soothe anger from members in the other boroughs….Brooklyn Queens Day was always something we kids who went to school in Brooklyn (we called it Brooklyn Day) gave Brooklyn some identity! I wouldn’t give it up (it may be illegal to do so anyway).

Im glad the UFT didnt agree. I think we should have walked away from all negotiations long ago. We closed the Rubber Rooms, saving the city 30 million per year. We agreed to that new pension system that saves the city 100 million per year. We made test scores part of teacher evaluations. We added charter schools allowing the city the chance to gain 700 million dollars. We changed the rating system, allowing us to get an ineffective rating for 2 years, and then be fired within 60 days. Shouldnt all of these negotiations and side agreements been part of our new contract? WE gave into all of this, and got absolutely nothing. No 4%, no 2%.

Whoa! So now the DOE can’t decide to set dates for school opening and closing without the UFT approval? The teachers will be in school no matter what…opening day or professional deveopment day. And why take a way a professional deveopment day? Don’t we want teachers and staff to be “well developed”.

Oh wait, I forgot, Eric Nadelstern doesn’t believe in PD days…waste of time and effort, you know.

What a waste of time and resources! And yes, unnecessarily stressful to our children, not to mention parents.

I yearn for the era when these decisions can be reconciled by fairness and common sense, devoid of the petulant, politically motivated and selfish concerns that do anything but “put children first”.

Yep Mel, responding to arguments with personal attacks, yep, that’s REAL grown up and educated sir (or madam). Let us hope you’re not in charge of any actual students.

Queens Parent,

Do you do any research before you type? NYC used to be one of the few that DID NOT have mid-winter recess. Can you tell me exactly which school systems “got rid of it?”

Mel what is your point.

I do agree their to many off days and the fact then chancellor needs the UFT’s permission is sad. No one I know that teaches would of complained at all. I would be happy to teach more days, if I could. (But right now not teaching at all do hiring freeze is annoying) I love teaching

The largest school district in NJ and NYC’s neighbor, Jersey City Public Schools, do not have mid-winter recess. Nor does Rochester (they got rid of it) and come on, Ken, if anyone needs a break from winter, wouldn’t Rochester? This is a vestige of the 70s energy crisis that should have gone away with Jimmy Carter. It makes no sense to give students a week off and then turn around a month later and give schools another 8 days off.

QueensParent,

DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!!!! NJ schools have an entire week off on November. They DO NOT go to school a week more than NY schools.

Math Teacher Bklyn: Even though you identify yourself as a math teacher, I’d seriously consider brushing up on my English skills, if I were you. You say you are out of a job because of the hiring freeze; if I got a resume or cover letter with the misspellings and grammatical errors in this comment (I count nine in a comment of only five lines, and six in your earlier comment of six lines), I’d toss it without further thought. No matter what discipline you teach, it is vital to communicate appropriately and professionally. In my opinion, that is true even if all you’re doing is commenting on a blog post.

As for the topic at hand, the DOE sets up their calendars at least a year or two in advance, and the dates for Rosh Hashanah haven’t changed–in hundreds of years! If they perceived there was going to be a problem, they should have thought of this a long, long time ago. (And mark my words: when this happens again in 2013, they will go through this same nonsense, as though no one had access to a Jewish calendar more than a few months in advance.) Notice how they claim to be responding to the parents; they should only be as responsive to teachers when they (the teachers) raise similarly troublesome issues. They are only using this as a smoke-screen to blame the UFT for a problem of their own making.

Personally, I’m perfectly fine with the calendar remaining as it is. I’m with “jr;” we have given and given and given–and gotten absolutely NOTHING in return. I like the idea of seeing the students for only one day and then having a four-day weekend. We won’t be getting Yom Kippur off this year; if they really wanted to, they could have just given that one extra day off (Wednesday) entirely, but to take away a later non-instructional day? Nope, not interested.

The idea of a union is to protect the interests of its members; if that offends people, so be it.

Just to repeat. We closed the Rubber Rooms, saving the city 30 million per year. We agreed to that new pension system that saves the city 100 million per year. We made test scores part of teacher evaluations. We added charter schools allowing the city the chance to gain 700 million dollars. We changed the rating system, allowing us to get an ineffective rating for 2 years, and then be fired within 60 days. Shouldnt all of these negotiations and side agreements been part of our new contract? WE gave into all of this, and got absolutely nothing. No 4%, no 2%. Im have a long way to go before retiring and thinking about quitting much sooner. Cant stand the union for letting all this go. None of the above should have been agreed to until we were paid.

I apologize for my spelling errors and grammatical errors. Writing has always been my weakness, which is why when I type anything for school or work I have wife proofread it for me. I’m just blogging so I was not paying much attention to my grammar I try very hard not to make any spelling mistakes. However, the more I post on this site and the petty things people argue about it makes me sad that some of these people maybe my colleagues one day. I did not appreciate you telling me in public about my spelling errors, I try very hard not to make any but I still do it seems. I would not mind if you email me (you can get my e-mail on my blog) my errors cause I’m always looking to improve myself.

The UFT has issued a statement regarding this and it is available on their web site but once again it boils down to this. We have an arrogant, incompetent, uncertified lawyer who never spent a day in a classroom as a teacher trying to show the union is responsible for anything that is bad and that he is so wonderful. Well let me speak from the perspective of a former High School teacher Mr. Klein. The first day of classes is devoted to organizing your class, assigning seats, explaining classroom procedures and in the best of circumstances perhaps distributing textbooks (not always but someties). If 1/2 to 3/4 of the class is absent, you have to repeat the whole procedure when the class is relatively all present. From an educational view point, it is idiotic to do what is being done; anybody with any experience in education (which Kleinh lacks) knows and understands that. And it has nothing tyo do with a day off for the teachers; they have to work that day anyway regardless. There are enough instructional days to meet state mandates and a PD day counts anyway. For Klein to blame the union just again goes to show what a low life he truly is and how he doesn’t give one damn about the safety and well being of the kids or the importance of getting a school term off to a non chaotic start. Just another indication of how unqualified this lawyer masquerading as an educator really is.

Yes, the school aides (DC37) are OFF on Brooklyn-Queens Day. So if Klein got his way it would have had a big disaster to have students in attendance that day and no aides to get them on and off their buses, supervise students during lunch, etc. etc. Does student safety mean anything to this man? Another show of his true incompetence where he just flies by the seat of his pants without any clue how things work. If he wanted to start the schools on the 13th he could have just done that without trying to make the change to Brooklyn-Queens Day. He once again had his OWN agenda.. to take away a PD day from schools… he just pretended that he was acting on behalf of parents. When it failed, he just used it to once again blame the Union. Shame on you Klein!

Math Teacher… I don’t believe having students in attendance today, June 28th, had anything to do with snow days.

Last summer the Chancellor wanted the Union to agree to some concessions.. I believe it was reducing the interest on retirement accounts among other things. In exchange for those concessions it was decided that teachers would not have to report to work on the Thursday before Labor Day but could instead report the Tuesday after (as it had been in the past). Great, except that the students were also expected to report back on the same day. Teachers and students all reporting back the same day???? Chancellor thought it would be a fine idea… anyone with half a brain thought otherwise. He reluctantly agreed to push back the student start day one day, to Wednesday after Labor Day but with that he decided to extend the school year to June 28th (instead of the 25th which was in the original calendar). It was stupid to have students come in on a Monday, in swealtering heat, just to collect their report cards. It should have been done on Friday. Even with the snow days we still exceeded the State’s 180 days of instuction so there were no make-up days necessary.

Teacher – thank you I like being liked, but even more, I like it when someone appreciates my lack of censorship from brain-to-mouth. My gripe about the a/c is an old one. It stems from the time during a heat wave, I think it was 2 years ago, when my classroom went up to about 110 degrees, and I had a couple of kids faint in the room. We also had a few non-verbal wheelchair-bound kids howling and crying because they were miserable because their sweaty legs were stuck to their seats. The school where I work has A/Cs in some of the classrooms but not in all. It would definitely be interesting to find out if Regents grades differed significantly depending on where the test was taken. Of course, there’s no way to have experimental and control groups because each school’s tests were marked by their own teachers, so there’d be no way to control the external variables.

I was talking about last Friday for High School Students.

To clarify my above comment, when I said that the union should have been proactive, I didn’t mean by heading off criticism of switching BK-Q Day. Rather weeks, if not months ago, the UFT could have publicly and strongly questioned the proposed start day of school. If, as folks here indicate, there are more than enough instructional days to fulfill state requirements, then they could have just said start the year on the 13th. Period. Parents would have been jubilant, rather than pissed, as they now are…

I have a solution.  Parents don’t have to take their kids to school on the 8th.  They can de-facto make the 13th the first day of school.  Everyone knows that they will not miss much on the 8th so just don’t send your kids to school that day.  Nothing tragic is going to happen if they miss that day.  In fact the 13th, as well agree, is going to seem like the first day of school.  So vote with your feet — don’t send your kids to school on the 8th.  Make the 13th the first day of school.

Is anyone surprised that, once again, Klein and Bloomberg are lying and trying to bust the union yet again? Anyone? I mean, they remove perfectly good principals from schools that are *not* failing (B rating) and which are rated by their own quality review people as “well developed”.

I hope parents understand that the children are the LAST priority of Messrs. Klein and Bloomberg.