Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Fact Checking the Superintendent's Recommendation on School Start Times

Superintendent Joshua Starr's recommendation on start times for high schools and elementary schools says:
"Extending the elementary day by 30 minutes equalizes the length of the instructional day for all three levels to 6 hours and 45 minutes. This aligns the length of the school day with most other school districts across the state of Maryland."
The elementary school data in Appendix I of the Report of the 2013 Bell Times Work Group shows the following:

County School System  and Length of School Day (Hours) for Elementary Schools

Prince George's  6.17
Montgomery     6.25 (current)
Garrett                6.40
Allegany            6.41
Anne Arundel    6.42
Baltimore           6.50
Carroll               6.50
Charles              6.50
Dorchester         6.50
Frederick           6.50
Harford             6.50
Howard             6.50
Kent                  6.50
Washington      6.50
Wicomico        6.50

Calvert             6.54
Cecil                6.66
Montgomery  6.75 (Starr's proposal)
Caroline           6.75
St Mary's         6.75
Talbot              6.75
Baltimore City 6.83
Queen Anne's  6.83
Somerset         7.00
Worcester       7.00

Superintendent Starr's proposal would actually put MCPS' elementary school day above the State average. 

4 comments:

  1. Don't forget we already go 185 days vs state mandated 180. Would like to see what other counties do here as well. What is total time? Because if we don't use snow days we don't give kids days off.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. See Appendix I at link above. All of that data is included in that Appendix.

      Delete
  2. The link you have for "Appendix 1" goes to Starr's memo and not the Bell report. Perhaps i am missing something

    ReplyDelete

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