The Wicomico County Board of Education is seeking input on its calendar for the 2010-2011 school year, prior to a final vote at the Jan. 12 Board meeting. The draft calendar, with school closings and holidays, is posted on the main page of the Board’s web site, under Links.
Under the proposed calendar, the school year would begin Monday, Aug. 30 and end June 10, 2011. Students would be off Nov. 24-26 for the Thanksgiving break, Dec. 23-Jan. 2 for the winter holidays (schools would reopen Jan. 3), and April 21-25 for the spring holidays. June 8, 9 and 10 would be early dismissal days.
Schools would also be closed Sept. 6 (Labor Day), Sept. 14 (Primary Election), Oct. 15 (MSTA Convention), Nov. 2 (General Election), Jan. 17 (Martin Luther King Birthday), Feb. 21 (Presidents Day) and May 30 (Memorial Day). Schools would be closed for students (but open for teachers) for professional days on Oct. 18, Jan. 24 and 25, Feb. 28 and May 2.
The calendar also includes proposed changes in graduation procedures for the county’s four high schools. Commencement ceremonies for the class of 2011 would take place at the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center for all four high schools, with Mardela High School students receiving diplomas the evening of Friday, June 3, 2011, and students from Parkside, James M. Bennett and Wicomico high schools graduating at staggered times on Saturday, June 4, 2011. Scheduling the commencement ceremonies for one location on only two days would save money on facility rental and other graduation costs for the school system and the high schools.
The proposed calendar may be downloaded as a pdf from the Wicomico County Board of Education’s Web site at www.wcboe.org, under Links.
The Board approved the draft calendar on first reading at its Dec. 8 meeting, and expects to adopt a final calendar at the Jan. 12 meeting. Please submit any comments or suggestions to Stacy Messick, Coordinator of Employees Relations, at smessick@wcboe.org or 410-677-4421.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
You want to cut more costs? Get rid of the County Kick-off Day at the Civic Center in August that all employees must attend. Most view it as a waste of time and would rather be at their schools. Teachers want time to set up their rooms, not sit and waste a morning at the Civic Center. Employees could be more productive in the schools and the BOE would save on renting the Civic Center for a 1/2 day.
ReplyDeletefrankly I don't understand why we start so early in the school year and still end up going to the second week of june....summer is almost nonexitence...and don't get me started on the professional days...where I went to school we went half day on the day the marking period ended so the teachers could have that time to work on the grades...if we got rid of the professional days we could get out of school sooner for those who do wait til then to travel.
ReplyDeleteAmen to getting rid of the opening day circus. Totally useless. Central office people like it because they don't have classrooms to set up and an open house for parents and students that afternoon. They also aren't in the schools on the first day so the civic center social is a nice gathering for them. The rest of us see it for the waste of time and money it is.
ReplyDeleteAll of us who work in the school system can give the public lots of ideas for cutting expenses. End administrators' retreats that are do nothing gatherings in places away from the schools. Get rid of professional development coaches and teacher mentors and let the supervisors work with their beginning teachers. That should be part of what instructional supervisors do. Get rid of all coordinators or pay them as half time workers because that is what their jobs really are. Get rid of one or both of the public relations people and let the appropriate director or assistant superintendent answer questions from the public. Get rid of either Mrs. Finger's job or Mr. Walker's job since together they have only one actual job. Get rid of take home cars. Get rid of any position with liaison in its title. Stop paying people to work with volunteer programs like DI. Either run those programs with volunteers like they're suppposed to be run or get rid of them. End the civic center hoopla at the beginning of the year. Only the central office people like it because they don't have to get ready to open the schools. Close the year round school at Delmar because it costs a small fortune to have the school open and staffed during the summer as well as the whole rest of the school year. Do something about the high number of directors at the Board. There are just too many of them. If the Bd does even one of these things, I will be surprised. Instead they're bunching up the graduations. Dumb as they can be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the 1/2 Prfoessional days! Also, if school is canceled, due to snow, let make it up over spring break or go to school on President's day, MLk day, and etc. ( we had school on Veteran's Day!) Let's quit adding the makeup days at the end, it is stupid to be in school till June 8, 9, or 10th. I also agree about the kick off day, cancel that as well!! When I was in school, we started after labor Day and got out Memorial Weekend, Why can't we do that now? Oh, I know, to many unnecessary Prof. Days, also, if we have 4-2 hour fog delays, A day should be made up, that's 8 hours!!
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to print a list of the jobs in facilities and maintenance. Talk about loads of made up titles. They add a position every 15 minutes. When you realize we have a full time position on school climate you know the bd is crazy. One of the two PR people should be eliminated too. Whoever heard of that nonsense? Why isn't the supt talking about any of this?
ReplyDeleteHalf of the professional days are organized by the principals in addition to the hundreds of other things principals have to do. Why should there be a fulltime position at the central office to organize the other half of those days? We all sign up for workshops taught by other teachers so what's the big deal. A secretary could handle that and a small committee could do the Teacher of the Year banquet. One position eliminated.
ReplyDeleteThe bd should look at the big difference in pay for after school activities. Coaches and class or club advisors are paid a low stipend that averages out to a few dollars an hour. People who work with DI in our school get over $20 an hour when DI is supposed to be an all volunteer program. DI workers should get a small stipend or better yet just be volunteers like the state website says they are. Getting over $20 an hour when coaches and advisors get far less is a joke. Makes you wonder how that happened.
ReplyDeletePeople have to realize that lots of the positions at the central office weren't needed when they were created. It was to make a place for someone who didn't like or wasn't doing well in the job he or she had. Liaison or coordinator or whatever was made up as something instead of getting rid of the person.
ReplyDelete1:33 is right but there is more. Many positions are created for people who don't like the job they have but some are created for family members of central office employees. It might be spouses or children.
ReplyDeleteOMG! Have you ever seen how many employees are in the finance dept?
ReplyDeleteMaybe we should get a list of responsibilties/duties & see if it justifies all being full time or maybe combining some duties. We'll told we need to tighten up the belts - WELL!
While you're looking at finance jobs, look at facilities and maintenance titles. They are ridiculous.
ReplyDelete