Steve Burns
WMAL.com
ROCKVILLE, Md. – (WMAL) The Montgomery County Board of Education is back to square one in planning for the 2017-2018 school year after Governor Larry Hogan’s Executive Order forcing all school systems to begin after Labor Day and end by June 15th. At a committee meeting Tuesday, Board members found the process will be much more complicated than in years past.
“Calendars are not quite as easy as everyone thinks,” Board member Patricia O’Neill tells WMAL. “This is all brand new territory.”
The Policy Management Committee is choosing to forward three calendars to the full Board for consideration, one of which obeys the Governor’s order on both ends of the calendar but forces snow contingency days to be tacked on to the end of Spring Break. Another begins before Labor Day, and the third ends after June 15th, both of which would require a waiver from the State Board of Education. O’Neill says the criteria the State Board uses to determine waivers is not known.
“Under state law, we have to be closed Good Friday, Easter Monday,” O’Neill says. “We are closed on Presidents Day and Martin Luther King Day.” She said Montgomery County also goes further than other districts in closing on Jewish holidays and Inauguration Day, and in using 184 days in the scheduled calendar year instead of 180.
“Squishing everything in the Governor’s Executive Order is a challenge,” she says.
O’Neill says staff pay is also a concern. Teacher salaries have been based on a 184-day instructional year.
“It’s a bit unfair to have to cut employees’ pay because of this Executive Order,” she says. “That’s still an unresolved matter.”
O’Neill said the full Board plans to make a final decision by mid-December.
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