Kids returning to school before Labour Day!!

[tricia]

Here's a couple of options.

Move several PA days to the week prior to Labour day.

Couldn't we arrive at the same amount of time in the class room by shaving a few minutes from lunch or adding a couple of minutes to the end of a school day?

That would go against the teachers contracts.

 

[dancin Disney style]

It was in the newspaper yesterday. The Halton board has confirmed that school will start on Sept. 1/09.

Just great....I can't wait to drop that bomb on my DD.

 

[Sheribo]

It was in the newspaper yesterday. The Halton board has confirmed that school will start on Sept. 1/09.

Just great....I can't wait to drop that bomb on my DD.

One of the options for Ottawa is Sept.3rd but I suspect Sept. 1st will win out here too.

 

[Tantor]

That's what I've heard for Peel too that they will startThe first week of Sept. That or they will take days off of Christmas break.
(according to the Principal at my DD's school)

 

[cslittle999]

Our board, Upper Grand, says that they have decided to start the school year before Labour Day but won't have chosen a day until the end of March.

They are claiming the reason that they haven't communicated anything before this is that they only start looking at the school year at the beginning of February when the province gives them a draft school year. Gross incompetence on all levels (province and board). Everyone has known that this was going to be a problem since the last teacher contract. Family Day only exaggerated the problem. Even without Family Day they would have been one day short.

I think any school days before Labour Day will be as wasted as most school days in June.

 

[dancin Disney style]

That's what I've heard for Peel too that they will startThe first week of Sept. That or they will take days off of Christmas break.
(according to the Principal at my DD's school)

It seems to be more logical to use a few of the days before Christmas. With Christmas fallling on Friday they are out for a full week prior. I have never seen a reason for a 2 week vacation at that time.

 

[Ham Ham]

Other than family day being added what's the major change that has the school boards starting before Labour Day?

DD's 10 & 14 are in the Dufferin/Peel Board. They had a PD day on the 30th of Jan & have another one upcoming on Friday the 27th.
Couldn't some PA days be moved to the week before Labour day? Someone posted that this was against the teachers contract.

Can anyone elaborate?

No problem either with the kids going to school on the Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday of Xmas week. Better to have more time off in the summer when weather is warmer.

 

[cslittle999]

Other than family day being added what's the major change that has the school boards starting before Labour Day?

DD's 10 & 14 are in the Dufferin/Peel Board. They had a PD day on the 30th of Jan & have another one upcoming on Friday the 27th.
Couldn't some PA days be moved to the week before Labour day? Someone posted that this was against the teachers contract.

Can anyone elaborate?

No problem either with the kids going to school on the Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday of Xmas week. Better to have more time off in the summer when weather is warmer.

The Upper Grand web site has a Q&A covering the 2009/2010 school year issue that answers most of these questions.

Basically between Labour Day and June 30th there are 192 possible instructional days and they need 194. A late Labour Day happens about every 10 years and the last time it happened there were only 4 PD days instead of the 6 PD days plus Family Day. The 2010/2011 school year has the same issue as 2009/2010.

Some boards seem to be moving a couple of PD days before Labour Day while others don't want to. Changing the Christmas break doesn't seem to be an option selected by anyone because then they have to submit the new school calendar for provincial approval by March 1. As long as they leave the Christmas and March breaks alone they don't have to and it gives them more time to decide.

Moving PD days around is possible but at least Upper Grand says, "that it is not optimal for the teachers' professional learning and creates work load issues." Sounds like platitudes to me.

The Upper Grand school calendar committee has at least 20 on it. I'm surprised that they accomplish anything. In the end it seems like Upper Grand is taking the simplest course which is to start the school year at least two days before Labour Day.

 

[dancin Disney style]

Other than family day being added what's the major change that has the school boards starting before Labour Day?

DD's 10 & 14 are in the Dufferin/Peel Board. They had a PD day on the 30th of Jan & have another one upcoming on Friday the 27th.
Couldn't some PA days be moved to the week before Labour day? Someone posted that this was against the teachers contract.

Can anyone elaborate?

No problem either with the kids going to school on the Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday of Xmas week. Better to have more time off in the summer when weather is warmer.

My thoughts exactly!!!!!!

 

[mississaugamom]

Does this start before Labour Day only affect elementary school students (K-Grade8)?

I would imagine the high schools have enough extra days at the end of June since they finish earlier in June.

Please correct me if I'm wrong! I'll keep my Grade 8 daughter out for the days before Labour Day if I have to, but we're taking her best friend along (who will be starting Grade 9 in September) so her missing school would be a different story.

Thanks!

Arlene

 

[Ham Ham]

The Upper Grand web site has a Q&A covering the 2009/2010 school year issue that answers most of these questions.

Basically between Labour Day and June 30th there are 192 possible instructional days and they need 194. A late Labour Day happens about every 10 years and the last time it happened there were only 4 PD days instead of the 6 PD days plus Family Day. The 2010/2011 school year has the same issue as 2009/2010.

Some boards seem to be moving a couple of PD days before Labour Day while others don't want to. Changing the Christmas break doesn't seem to be an option selected by anyone because then they have to submit the new school calendar for provincial approval by March 1. As long as they leave the Christmas and March breaks alone they don't have to and it gives them more time to decide.

Moving PD days around is possible but at least Upper Grand says, "that it is not optimal for the teachers' professional learning and creates work load issues." Sounds like platitudes to me.

The Upper Grand school calendar committee has at least 20 on it. I'm surprised that they accomplish anything. In the end it seems like Upper Grand is taking the simplest course which is to start the school year at least two days before Labour Day.

Thanks for the link and answers Chris.

 

[Tantor]

No problem either with the kids going to school on the Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday of Xmas week. Better to have more time off in the summer when weather is warmer.

Yeah I probablly would get more done for X'mas with DD in school!!

 

[Sheribo]

Yeah I probablly would get more done for X'mas with DD in school!!

When I first heard about the calendar issue, there were 4 options on the table. None of them had an adjustment to the Christmas break. Didn't anyone think of that? And by that time, it was too late to submit an opinion.

Our school board had said over and over that they wanted staff & parental input yet they didn't announce it in enough time to meet the deadline. According to the board, the parent council was notified and they were supposed to pass it on to the parents. Kind of underhanded I think. Now the school council is getting a lot of heat.

 

[chimo2u]

After all this labour day discussion, and a false sense of security, [since I had the Minister of Education send me a calander in the fall when I was starting to plan this trip], I thought "why not just have a look at our district's website (we are with Greater St. Albert catholic div. Alberta).... Much to my dismay, what do I see???? A Sept. 1 first day of classes, after being told the kids don't go back until after labour day That sucks, as originally I was ok with the boys missing the first shorter week of school....they where only going to miss 4 days originally (Tue-Fri) of that first week....NOW they will miss 9 days of school since our vacation is booked for Sept. 1-12....All reserved, flights booked and paid, leave booked at our jobs....so there is no way to change things now. My kids are starting grades 11 and 8, so this will be quite a hurdle to go over when they get back. I feel awful that they will miss so many days, but I guess life will have to go on and we will have to find a way to minimize the impact somehow. I am just so frustrated that the district could give a parent information that, yes, school starts after labour day, and then it all ends up being complete mis-information.
I bet this is going to affect a lot of people's vacation plans.

 

[Sheribo]

After all this labour day discussion, and a false sense of security, [since I had the Minister of Education send me a calander in the fall when I was starting to plan this trip], I thought "why not just have a look at our district's website (we are with Greater St. Albert catholic div. Alberta).... Much to my dismay, what do I see???? A Sept. 1 first day of classes, after being told the kids don't go back until after labour day That sucks, as originally I was ok with the boys missing the first shorter week of school....they where only going to miss 4 days originally (Tue-Fri) of that first week....NOW they will miss 9 days of school since our vacation is booked for Sept. 1-12....All reserved, flights booked and paid, leave booked at our jobs....so there is no way to change things now. My kids are starting grades 11 and 8, so this will be quite a hurdle to go over when they get back. I feel awful that they will miss so many days, but I guess life will have to go on and we will have to find a way to minimize the impact somehow. I am just so frustrated that the district could give a parent information that, yes, school starts after labour day, and then it all ends up being complete mis-information.
I bet this is going to affect a lot of people's vacation plans.

I have been loosing sleep over this. We too booked a holiday based on the ministry website that clearly shows the kids starting after labour day. I'm just sick about it.

 

[toesmom]

After all this labour day discussion, and a false sense of security, [since I had the Minister of Education send me a calander in the fall when I was starting to plan this trip], I thought "why not just have a look at our district's website (we are with Greater St. Albert catholic div. Alberta).... Much to my dismay, what do I see???? A Sept. 1 first day of classes, after being told the kids don't go back until after labour day That sucks, as originally I was ok with the boys missing the first shorter week of school....they where only going to miss 4 days originally (Tue-Fri) of that first week....NOW they will miss 9 days of school since our vacation is booked for Sept. 1-12....All reserved, flights booked and paid, leave booked at our jobs....so there is no way to change things now. My kids are starting grades 11 and 8, so this will be quite a hurdle to go over when they get back. I feel awful that they will miss so many days, but I guess life will have to go on and we will have to find a way to minimize the impact somehow. I am just so frustrated that the district could give a parent information that, yes, school starts after labour day, and then it all ends up being complete mis-information.
I bet this is going to affect a lot of people's vacation plans.

You really have to decide if you want your kids missing 9 days of school. Earlier in this thread I explained how our flights were recently booked for aug 27-Sept 3, and after reading this thread, decided to pay $360 to change the flight dates so that my kids don't miss any school (don't they get enough homework when they ARE in school actually learning the stuff?). Now we are back Aug 27.

Find out if you can possibly change your vacation plans, since last week of August is usually pretty slow everywhere since most people are on holiday (and most camps don't even run that last week). Most airlines allow changes to flights for a fee - find out what the change fee will be, it might be worth it.

BTW, last year I asked principal about timing for March Break (private school here), turns out the week he confirmed to me changed by the time calendar was set - what could I do? So this is the 2nd time I've had to change my plans.

 

[chimo2u]

You really have to decide if you want your kids missing 9 days of school. Earlier in this thread I explained how our flights were recently booked for aug 27-Sept 3, and after reading this thread, decided to pay $360 to change the flight dates so that my kids don't miss any school (don't they get enough homework when they ARE in school actually learning the stuff?). Now we are back Aug 27.

Find out if you can possibly change your vacation plans, since last week of August is usually pretty slow everywhere since most people are on holiday (and most camps don't even run that last week). Most airlines allow changes to flights for a fee - find out what the change fee will be, it might be worth it.

BTW, last year I asked principal about timing for March Break (private school here), turns out the week he confirmed to me changed by the time calendar was set - what could I do? So this is the 2nd time I've had to change my plans.

Hi again Sorry, but as I mentioned, there is absolutely no way we can change our plans. Everything is booked, paid and non-refundable/changeable (especially airfare) and we also already booked this time off for leave from work. We are meeting another family there (our long-time friends) from BC and they are all booked and confirmed as well. There is no way we will be changing things now, and I guess they'll have to miss 8 days of school. (I miscalculated at first....Sept. 1 is the first day back and a Tuesday. Sept 7 is labour day (Tuesday)...so they'd miss 4 days each week). I feel badly that it worked out this way, but life goes on and family time is so important. I am sure we are not the first family whose kids miss a week of school. I will make the best of it and not let it ruin our family vacation, as this is probably our last big trip with the boys. I will definitely be going into the school on Monday to give them a heads up about what is happening now that I have seen the schedule change!

 

[Tiger926]

As a teacher, I admit that most school boards and the Ministry of Ed do not do a good enough job of communicating to parents that no school calendars are final until after March 1st of that current year. Anything posted before this, is just tentative. Our board does have tentative on our website, but as I've mentioned to them many times, so many parents don't even go on the computer, much less read websites.

I feel badly for parents, and I totally understand that work and family schedules are such that vacationing right before school is necessary, but when booking this late in the summer, you probably already figured that you could be affecting school if indeed there was an emergency of some sort. If flights can't be changed or vacations rebooked, I would suggest that you let your school know in August that your kids are going to be missing 9 days (which is 2 weeks of school) - especially highschool. As a highschool teacher, we get rolling the very first day of school, so missing 2 weeks in grade 11 is a lot of time to miss.

Hopefully, it will all work out, but I would hope that all of you who have been affected by this are letting other families know that school calendars are not finalized until after March 1st in case they should struggle with the same vacation issues in the future.

Tiger

 

[RunDanceSkate]

We are not changing either. Our kids will miss 4 days of school. My vacation days are booked and unchangeable. DH's are booked and can not be switched. We could change our airfare with no fee, but changing our cruise dates would cost alot. Both kids are in high school, DS grade 10 DD grade 8.

C

 

[cslittle999]

As a teacher, I admit that most school boards and the Ministry of Ed do not do a good enough job of communicating to parents that no school calendars are final until after March 1st of that current year. Anything posted before this, is just tentative.

From what I've read the March 1st deadline is only important if the school board wants to modify the school year (start before Sept. 1, go after June 30, shorten Christmas or March break). Our school board isn't going to post a calendar until after March 31.

Our school board communicated nothing until parents started calling them because they had read newspaper articles. I get the feeling that if the newspapers hadn't started writing articles they wouldn't have told us anything until much later in the year. I know you're trying to help but really the Ministry of Ed and the school boards knew there was going to be a problem last year. That they did nothing to communicate the potential issue is the problem. As I said before my guess is that the school days before Labour Day will be wasted because so many kids will miss them. Teachers are going to have to deal with poor decision making by the boards and a the MoE.