Stafford schools makeup days

Our problem this year with make-up time is we have too many half days & Teacher Prof / Work days.

I have heard from teachers in Prince William County , that their Elementary schools follow the same schedule as we do here in Stafford. They start post Labor Day, they get out in June when we do, they attend elem 6 1/2 hrs a day same as us, and have 17 recess min/day. BUT – they have approx 12 snow days built in. How is this I asked? Answer was simple – they do NOT have half days or Teacher Professional/Work days. Even the last week of school they go full days.

Stafford needs to consider modeling after them. Our staff has miscalculated our elem instructional time by incorrectly counting our 16 min/day recess as instructional minutes. This error takes our snow bank days from (9) to (2). All can be fixed if we simply eliminate our half days & teacher professional/work days like Prince William does. If we eliminate the above, there should be no need to extend the elem school day or shift the calendar. I think 12 built in snow days is plenty for this area.

Currently Stafford has approx (15) half days and (5) teacher professional days.

Yes, I know plenty of teachers both in Stafford & Prince William. The teachers in Stafford say they think the “professional days” are a waste of their time. Say they are silly things central office makes them do. They are not doing grading/planning on those days. Prince William says they manage just fine and think it’s ridiculous for Stafford to have all those half days & professional days. I will check Fairfax.

Bottom line is staff has been miscalculating our elem instructional time for several years. It has to be fixed.

Does the elem teacher above think that our kids/and her co-workers should go to longer school days just so we can have 15 half days and some professional days?