Dr. Jerry Weast

Superintendent of Schools

Montgomery County Public Schools

850 Hungerford Drive

Rockville, MD 20850-1747                                                                     December 8, 2004

 

 

Dear Dr. Weast (and all BOE members),

 

I am writing on behalf of the MCCPTA executive board regarding your upcoming discussion about the 2005/2006 MCPS School Calendar.   We would like to make a few suggestions for changes to the proposed calendar.   Starting school prior to Labor Day continues to be a source of concern for many of our parents.  Please consider making Monday August 29, 2005 the parent visitation mini day and Tuesday August 31, 2005 the official first day of classes for students.   This change would allow another full weekend of summer for families.

 

Please consider changing the Professional Day scheduled for Tuesday November 1, 2005 to Friday October 28th, Monday October 31st or Friday November 4, 2004.  Our parents have been very supportive of scheduling for extended weekends.

 

The proposed January schedule includes 3 Monday closings. Many of our working parents will have off January 2nd and January 16th because of scheduled holidays.  We suggest changing the January 23rd professional day to either Friday January 13th or Tuesday January 17th, thus allowing for an extended weekend.

 

We would like to suggest changing the Spring Break to Thursday April 13, 2006 – Friday April 21, 2006.  This change would include the entire Passover Week while still allowing Good Friday and Easter Monday.

 

The copy of the draft 2005/2006 calendar, that Mr. Bower’s office forwarded to us for our input, did not include any proposed half days or the schedule for adding additional days.  We would like to request a copy of the completed 2005/2006 Calendar as quickly as these dates have been identified.  We continue to advocate that copies of proposed/draft calendars for the 2006/2007, 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 school years be shared with our organization at your earliest convenience this year.

 

Thank you for soliciting our comments and we sincerely hope that you will consider our input and institute our suggested changes.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Cindy Kerr

President

 

 

CC:      Larry Bowers

             Robin Confino