Dear Editor,
Parents need to be aware of a decision by the Langley School Board that will cost them money and reduce our quality of life, while reducing the quality of our children’s educations.
Teachers get professional development days in the school calendar. In 2013-2014 there were four of those days. Each required a parent to stay at home or find alternate care for their children, costing either money or vacation days.
Apparently, the school district has decided that ruining four days of work was not challenging enough for parents, so for the 2014-2015 elementary/middle school calendar, professional development will be by the half day.
Next year, parents are going to need to either find daycare or stay home from work eight times instead of four.
Since most workplaces only give 10 vacation days a year, a working parent could conceivably have to use most of a year’s worth of holidays so teachers can “collaborate†for half a day at a time.
Apparently, teachers will “collaborate†for the morning, and we will be asked to send our kids to school at noon to eat lunch, then attend class for two hours before they are dismissed.
When will our school district recognize that these inventive and novel ideas don’t just mildly inconvenience parents, but cost them real money?
If you have to give the teachers professional development, do it over a full day, and don’t further mess with our lives and our schedules.
Blair King, Walnut Grove