The South Milwaukee School District has detailed its plan to make up for classroom time lost due to four cold-weather cancellations in January.
Here is the memo. The plan includes …
- The addition of a full day of school on May 23, the Friday before Memorial Day, for all students;
- The addition of full days on June 12 for elementary and middle schoolers and June 13 for middle schoolers (elementary students will have a half day on June 13);
- The addition of longer school days for elementary and middle school students — one minute longer for grade school students and 15 minutes for middle school students. The middle school day will now run from 7:45 a.m. to 3 p.m., as district officials have discovered “passing time at the lunch hour was inadvertently counted as instructional time.”
Also, the district is looking at starting future bad weather days two hours late vs. cancelling an entire day. And it’s telling parents to keep June 16 and 17 open on calendars in case of additional full-day cancellations.
South Milwaukee Blog 
Instead of making the kids make up time full days in June..why don’t they just make the inconvenient HALF days into full days? They already have a half day tomorro (at least at the high school)
How about doing actual work during the last 2 weeks of school?!? They. watch movies, clean the classroom, have parties….all matter of anything but school work. Do away with a lot of that and they wouldn’t need to make anything up.
The district planned for these “Snow Make-Up Days” on May 23rd and June 13th when they made the schedule last year, so this should not have been a surprise.
The half days are for professional development and collaboration time for the teachers and staff. There is one a month, minus April and June. Teachers have been using that time to prepare and align their curriculum to the Common Core for it’s implementation next year.
I can’t speak for other teachers, but I know that my students are definitely still doing work the last 2 weeks of school. And technically, it’s not the instructional time that has to be made up, it’s the amount of time that students are required to be in school per the Department of Public Instruction.
I’d tread carefully when and if Common Core is implemented. I have attended public hearing meetings on this issue and there is a growing number of people who oppose it. There are teachers I’ve spoken to in many areas that are not in favor of it either. Here is a link that raises a few questions we should be asking of our District. http://wyomingagainstcommoncore.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/wyoming-teacher-asks-thought-provoking-questions-on-common-cores-implimenation/
The following link gives an overview on Common Core:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-common-core-ravitch/
First off, this post was about the make up days, not about the Common Core. I was simply stating what is being done on the “inconvenient half days”.
Secondly, not everything about the Common Core is bad. Our district does not have a say in the standards that they use, so they won’t be able to question what the state is doing. The responsibility of choosing a set of standards for Wisconsin is on our state superintendent.
The Common Core standards are not going away. Here is a link to a press release from Tony Evers, our state superintendent, with his response to Governor Walker asking to look at the standards again: http://news.dpi.wi.gov/files/eis/pdf/dpinr2014_12.pdf
Allison, I do know our District has no control over the standards because they were federally imposed.. As a parent, who appreciates teachers and the job they do. I am concerned how CC will affect their performance. Teachers are being Evaluated on The basis of results coming from test scores and assessments aligned with CC; Student evaluations of the teachers and the behaviors of their students all effect teacher performance. How is that fair to the teachers? Here is a resolution at the federal level. http://www.scribd.com/doc/204875080/Resolution-Denouncing-the-President-s-Coercion-of-States-into-Adopting-Common-Core-State-Standards
Tony Evers claims that he alone has the authority to adopt the standards. I heard these words come out of his mouth at the State Capitol public hearing meeting. You don’t have to believe me, Here is a link http://legis.wisconsin.gov/eupdates/asm52/Common%20Core%20Thiesfeldt%20personal%20thoughts%20paper%2011-26-13.pdf