School Holidays/Breaks

[bcwife76]

I'm in Surrey BC and our school board releases their calendars well in advance. The 2020-2021 calendar has been out for over a year now. We always go back to school AFTER Labour day here in BC. That sucks for everyone whose calendars have been changed around

 

[quandrea]

Our school board never has their PD days at Thanksgiving or around other holidays - I wish they would!!

The thanksgiving one lasted maybe seven years or so. I liked it. This coming school year, there is a pa day before family day weekend.

 

[StarSeven7]

The thanksgiving one lasted maybe seven years or so. I liked it. This coming school year, there is a pa day before family day weekend.

We usually have one the last week in January instead!

 

[bankr63]

Oh. They're moving those PA days to the end of summer instead of through the year. Great for parents, not great for teachers. But that does help with people who have booked vacations.

I'll say. If I was a teacher in Peel I would be pretty upset. Two of those PA days are report writing days, so that means that all of the report writing this year will have to be done on personal time (assuming the teachers have a contract by next year).

Hmm. Am I a bad mom because we're taking 3 days around this year's spring break? My kids are grades 12 and 10 (younger writing the OSSLT after we return)? Heck, these teacher's strikes are already impacting the teaching times, but at least there haven't been any snow days this year.

I would be surprised if they write OSSLT anytime soon after the break. Not positive about OSSTF, but ETFO is certainly not administering any of the standardized testing in the Elementary system. There should still be lots of time to prepare for the testing as the job action is not likely to be resolved before the break. However, (IMO) losing days for grade 11 and 12 students is never a good thing as those marks are so crucial to post secondary placements.

ETA: not implying bad mom. You know your kids better than anyone. I might have taken days with my DS when he was in those grades. With his health issues he always missed a lot of school but was a champ at staying caught up and always maintained excellent grades. Actually, he's in the final year of Engineering and STILL maintains an excellent GPA. OTOH my DD needed every bit of class time to keep her marks up and would not have been a good candidate for extra days off for vacation.

 

[FigmentSpark]

I would be surprised if they write OSSLT anytime soon after the break. Not positive about OSSTF, but ETFO is certainly not administering any of the standardized testing in the Elementary system. There should still be lots of time to prepare for the testing as the job action is not likely to be resolved before the break. However, (IMO) losing days for grade 11 and 12 students is never a good thing as those marks are so crucial to post secondary placements.

ETA: not implying bad mom. You know your kids better than anyone. I might have taken days with my DS when he was in those grades. With his health issues he always missed a lot of school but was a champ at staying caught up and always maintained excellent grades. Actually, he's in the final year of Engineering and STILL maintains an excellent GPA. OTOH my DD needed every bit of class time to keep her marks up and would not have been a good candidate for extra days off for vacation.

Actually, I've already received the notification from the school that the test will go ahead on March 31. It's crazy. There's another strike day next Thursday.

 

[Silvermist999]

The thanksgiving one lasted maybe seven years or so. I liked it. This coming school year, there is a pa day before family day weekend.

We usually have one the last week in January instead!

Well, this school year, my kids already had numerous PA Days including right on the Friday before Thanksgiving, on Jan31st and also on Feb14th (not strike day) before Family day weekend. I feel like my kids (one in elementary, other in secondary) have hardly been in school much this year. Alot of us are thinking they may not be in school much, if at all, the week before March break.

 

[grantclaire]

Hi, I work for a private school. We have no PD days and get a extra week for March break. The parents seem to like it!

 

[quandrea]

Well, this school year, my kids already had numerous PA Days including right on the Friday before Thanksgiving, on Jan31st and also on Feb14th (not strike day) before Family day weekend. I feel like my kids (one in elementary, other in secondary) have hardly been in school much this year. Alot of us are thinking they may not be in school much, if at all, the week before March break.

Dd started her new semester Feb 1. There have been so many interruptions between pa days, strike days, holiday weekend. Feels like she hasn’t even started and we are a month in. For her online course, the teacher didn’t even post anything until six days in to the semester.

 

[Susan2771]

6 days in!! That must have been very stressful.

 

[quandrea]

6 days in!! That must have been very stressful.

I could not believe it! I’m a retired teacher—homeschool my younger ones now. Every day I kept adding the instructional minutes in my head—450–and it’s a grade twelve course! Not impressed.

 

[bookbabe626]

I could not believe it! I’m a retired teacher—homeschool my younger ones now. Every day I kept adding the instructional minutes in my head—450–and it’s a grade twelve course! Not impressed.

Many of the online courses, at least in TDSB, generally don’t start on day one of the semester, they wait a few days until they have full enrollment. Some courses may have filled up prior to the start of the semester, but others don’t fill until a few days in.

Not everyone (at this point, at least) is taking an online course by choice, many are either waiting for a spot in an in-person class and eventually enroll in the online version as a Plan B when no in-person spots open up, or they choose the online course as a second choice when they discover after a few days that they don’t like their first choice and everything else in-person is full.

It would work differently in terms of start-up for an online summer course, those start on a much tighter timeline since the majority of the registration has happened a month or two prior.

 

[quandrea]

Many of the online courses, at least in TDSB, generally don’t start on day one of the semester, they wait a few days until they have full enrollment. Some courses may have filled up prior to the start of the semester, but others don’t fill until a few days in.

Not everyone (at this point, at least) is taking an online course by choice, many are either waiting for a spot in an in-person class and eventually enroll in the online version as a Plan B when no in-person spots open up, or they choose the online course as a second choice when they discover after a few days that they don’t like their first choice and everything else in-person is full.

It would work differently in terms of start-up for an online summer course, those start on a much tighter timeline since the majority of the registration has happened a month or two prior.

I understand all that, but in my day (now I sound old), if you enrolled late to a class, you caught up. The entire class didn’t wait for stragglers to arrive. I still see it as a really poor use of time and not the best way to start the semester.

We are not with tdsb.


We should get back on topic.

 

[BLAZEY]

I'm in Surrey BC and our school board releases their calendars well in advance. The 2020-2021 calendar has been out for over a year now. We always go back to school AFTER Labour day here in BC. That sucks for everyone whose calendars have been changed around

I'm in BC too, on Vancouver Island, and our calendar has been our for a year or so now. Our is probably pretty close to your's but Spring Break and some Pro D days differ, but not by much. My cousins Kids are on the mainland too and they had one week of overlap with DD, we actually got a couple of days in DL with them last year.