Why does FCPS have all these random days of week off???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to another country and you won’t be getting ‘your’ holidays off. You’ll get their state holidays. We need to stick to that here.

Just like DCUM, keeping it white and privileged.

Ok. You tell us - in what other country would it be likely for someone who is a minority religion or cultural group to succeed in requiring the overwhelming share of people NOT of their religion / culture to observe a day off work/school. I’m curious.

Almost all federal holidays are not religious. Xmas - which is celebrated by an overwhelming majority of Americans whether they are Christian or non-religious - is the sole exception. School holidays track federal holidays primarily. Personally I am in favor of a 10 day winter break (2 days or so before Xmas to 1/2) but the people with money to travel keep voting for 2 full weeks. As for Easter - most parents do not care if spring break is the week overlapping with Easter or not and even teachers likely mostly care that it is the SAME week as other districts regardless of when that ends up being.

The height of privilege is not observing holidays that the large majority of the country observes.

In many of these schools, white Christian is the minority.

In what schools are Christians (or at least cultural Christians who observe holidays) minorities? Whiteness is irrelevant here, as that is not a prerequisite for Cmas

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/navy-elementary-208250

My kids school is plurality asian at about 46%.

Even if we assume that all of the black and hispanic kids are Christian and that 100% of the White kids are Christian that would make the entire school less than 50% Christian.

Huh? Math. That would make 54%, which is more that 50 and not minority. Plus, why are all Asians non-Christians? Do you not know any Koreans??

Koreans are a much smaller portion of the Navy elementary population. The Asian population primarily Indian and Chinese.

Whites are 38.9%, Hispanic is 5.6 and Black is 3.6, though there are only 2 White kids in my child's class. The summation is 48.1%.

Great. Now what % if schools in FCPS fit that that profile?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been a million calendar threads. Parents were surveyed. Clearly you didn’t want what others did.

The parent survey counts for nothing.

OP here. I’m fairly certain I filled out a calendar survey and I am 100% certain the current school calendar does not reflect what I wanted.

I do remember I did not mind an earlier start for an earlier end date. Nowhere did I vote for an earlier start date AND a later end date.

I definitely did not vote for all these one off days off sprinkled all over the calendar.

It’s almost as if your vote was one vote and not a binding edict you issued to the school district.

No, parents generally did not vote in favor of this calendar. They voted against extending the year and against prioritizing alignment with other districts. FCPS just ignored what a string majority of parents voted for.

If you look at the survey results only about 20 percent of parents took it. So everyone clamoring about parents not getting what they wanted needs to take a step back and look at the data. Not a lot of parents even took the survey. They also looked at viewpoints of students and teachers.

Polling students is ridiculous. They are children and were only asked to have another variable to toss in to the total. Polling employees is appropriate but should not be weighted equally to parents. Finally the survey was intentionally designed to avoid asking people directly about the holidays in question - there were proxies for them that may or may not equate to employee support for them. The align with other districts question lumped the holidays in with the misaligned spring break which was arguably the much bigger deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to another country and you won’t be getting ‘your’ holidays off. You’ll get their state holidays. We need to stick to that here.

Just like DCUM, keeping it white and privileged.

Ok. You tell us - in what other country would it be likely for someone who is a minority religion or cultural group to succeed in requiring the overwhelming share of people NOT of their religion / culture to observe a day off work/school. I’m curious.

Almost all federal holidays are not religious. Xmas - which is celebrated by an overwhelming majority of Americans whether they are Christian or non-religious - is the sole exception. School holidays track federal holidays primarily. Personally I am in favor of a 10 day winter break (2 days or so before Xmas to 1/2) but the people with money to travel keep voting for 2 full weeks. As for Easter - most parents do not care if spring break is the week overlapping with Easter or not and even teachers likely mostly care that it is the SAME week as other districts regardless of when that ends up being.

The height of privilege is not observing holidays that the large majority of the country observes.

In many of these schools, white Christian is the minority.

In what schools are Christians (or at least cultural Christians who observe holidays) minorities? Whiteness is irrelevant here, as that is not a prerequisite for Cmas

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/navy-elementary-208250

My kids school is plurality asian at about 46%.

Even if we assume that all of the black and hispanic kids are Christian and that 100% of the White kids are Christian that would make the entire school less than 50% Christian.

Huh? Math. That would make 54%, which is more that 50 and not minority. Plus, why are all Asians non-Christians? Do you not know any Koreans??

Koreans are a much smaller portion of the Navy elementary population. The Asian population primarily Indian and Chinese.

Whites are 38.9%, Hispanic is 5.6 and Black is 3.6, though there are only 2 White kids in my child's class. The summation is 48.1%.

You are failing to account for the fact that Navy is an AAP center which skews the demographics toward Asians. We don’t set the calendar based on demographics at one school that draws students from other schools from third grade on. I assume your child is in AAP. We are at Navy and my children have never been one of only two white kids in their class.

[Anonymous]

I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

+1
This is what happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

I get that. I know that is what happened. But then what is the point of the survey when we are not going to listen to them? They had to add all the other religious holidays to cover their butts, not being inclusive when you add one set of religious holidays would have been an immediate no go for obvious reasons. It is ridiculous that the calendar is as poorly structured as it is and has so few full weeks because one group wants its religion recognized on the calendar. the Christmas is in Winter Break is a tired argument. It is a Federal Holiday, should it be a Federal Holiday? I have no clue. Probably not. But it is. Spring Break should have been removed from the Easter holidays ages ago, that is a welcome change. And the response to that was "Let's screw up the rest of the calendar by adding a day for every group because Christmas."

I am sorry but it is BS. The calendar is a mess. Hopefully more then 23% of the parents will respond this year and clearly type in the comments section that they want the religious holidays as days off gone. Because it is not going to be asked about in the actual questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

This is not what happened. The SB put together an equity task force right before the pandemic with leaders from different faith communities, and asked them to come up with calendar recommendations. That task force chose four holidays (Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Diwali) to add to the calendar and made that recommendation to the SB (calendars A and B from what feels like a million years ago). The SB ignored their own task force's recommendations and came up with the O Day nonsense from last year. Those religious groups were asked to come to the table and contribute to an equitable calendar, and then they were straight-up ignored, so of course they continued to advocate on their own behalf. All four of those days were always meant to be on the calendar. Eid and Diwali weren't added to look "fair and balanced" in the face of Jewish "clamor." They were carefully chosen by an interfaith task force that considered the religious significance and observance requirements of many holidays and decided on those four. Spring Break is also now realigned with Easter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

I get that. I know that is what happened. But then what is the point of the survey when we are not going to listen to them? They had to add all the other religious holidays to cover their butts, not being inclusive when you add one set of religious holidays would have been an immediate no go for obvious reasons. It is ridiculous that the calendar is as poorly structured as it is and has so few full weeks because one group wants its religion recognized on the calendar. the Christmas is in Winter Break is a tired argument. It is a Federal Holiday, should it be a Federal Holiday? I have no clue. Probably not. But it is. Spring Break should have been removed from the Easter holidays ages ago, that is a welcome change. And the response to that was "Let's screw up the rest of the calendar by adding a day for every group because Christmas."

I am sorry but it is BS. The calendar is a mess. Hopefully more then 23% of the parents will respond this year and clearly type in the comments section that they want the religious holidays as days off gone. Because it is not going to be asked about in the actual questions.

Do we need an entire week before Christmas off? No, we do not. My family has never needed a full week before and after Christmas to celebrate it. Why we need to start Winter Break on Monday, December 19, instead of, say, Friday, December 23, is beyond me. The week between Christmas and New Years is enough of a break and worth closing for attendance, but I don't know anyone who travels as early as Monday for a holiday the following Sunday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

I get that. I know that is what happened. But then what is the point of the survey when we are not going to listen to them? They had to add all the other religious holidays to cover their butts, not being inclusive when you add one set of religious holidays would have been an immediate no go for obvious reasons. It is ridiculous that the calendar is as poorly structured as it is and has so few full weeks because one group wants its religion recognized on the calendar. the Christmas is in Winter Break is a tired argument. It is a Federal Holiday, should it be a Federal Holiday? I have no clue. Probably not. But it is. Spring Break should have been removed from the Easter holidays ages ago, that is a welcome change. And the response to that was "Let's screw up the rest of the calendar by adding a day for every group because Christmas."

I am sorry but it is BS. The calendar is a mess. Hopefully more then 23% of the parents will respond this year and clearly type in the comments section that they want the religious holidays as days off gone. Because it is not going to be asked about in the actual questions.

Do we need an entire week before Christmas off? No, we do not. My family has never needed a full week before and after Christmas to celebrate it. Why we need to start Winter Break on Monday, December 19, instead of, say, Friday, December 23, is beyond me. The week between Christmas and New Years is enough of a break and worth closing for attendance, but I don't know anyone who travels as early as Monday for a holiday the following Sunday.

Many people do travel days or weeks before Christmas. There are also many people traveling to see international family during the break, even adding on weeks. Both Indian and Central American families do this frequently.

[Anonymous]

The random days off are terrible--for students and for parents. How does one get in a rhythm? I was just looking at the calendar and it's ridiculous in October and November. How do they justify this? And why do we go so late in June? The SOLs are in early May.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

I get that. I know that is what happened. But then what is the point of the survey when we are not going to listen to them? They had to add all the other religious holidays to cover their butts, not being inclusive when you add one set of religious holidays would have been an immediate no go for obvious reasons. It is ridiculous that the calendar is as poorly structured as it is and has so few full weeks because one group wants its religion recognized on the calendar. the Christmas is in Winter Break is a tired argument. It is a Federal Holiday, should it be a Federal Holiday? I have no clue. Probably not. But it is. Spring Break should have been removed from the Easter holidays ages ago, that is a welcome change. And the response to that was "Let's screw up the rest of the calendar by adding a day for every group because Christmas."

I am sorry but it is BS. The calendar is a mess. Hopefully more then 23% of the parents will respond this year and clearly type in the comments section that they want the religious holidays as days off gone. Because it is not going to be asked about in the actual questions.

Do we need an entire week before Christmas off? No, we do not. My family has never needed a full week before and after Christmas to celebrate it. Why we need to start Winter Break on Monday, December 19, instead of, say, Friday, December 23, is beyond me. The week between Christmas and New Years is enough of a break and worth closing for attendance, but I don't know anyone who travels as early as Monday for a holiday the following Sunday.

Many people do travel days or weeks before Christmas. There are also many people traveling to see international family during the break, even adding on weeks. Both Indian and Central American families do this frequently.

If people want to take these long trips during the school year they can choose to take unexcused absences. Why are we building the calendar around this? It’s absurd. Why should people get a long break AND their personal religious holidays off? Pick one or the other. And that goes for Christians too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

This is not what happened. The SB put together an equity task force right before the pandemic with leaders from different faith communities, and asked them to come up with calendar recommendations. That task force chose four holidays (Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Diwali) to add to the calendar and made that recommendation to the SB (calendars A and B from what feels like a million years ago). The SB ignored their own task force's recommendations and came up with the O Day nonsense from last year. Those religious groups were asked to come to the table and contribute to an equitable calendar, and then they were straight-up ignored, so of course they continued to advocate on their own behalf. All four of those days were always meant to be on the calendar. Eid and Diwali weren't added to look "fair and balanced" in the face of Jewish "clamor." They were carefully chosen by an interfaith task force that considered the religious significance and observance requirements of many holidays and decided on those four. Spring Break is also now realigned with Easter.

Why is a public school system soliciting recommendations from ANY religion?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The random days off are terrible--for students and for parents. How does one get in a rhythm? I was just looking at the calendar and it's ridiculous in October and November. How do they justify this? And why do we go so late in June? The SOLs are in early May.

There's no rational justification for any of this. This is the price of "equity" - an idiotic school calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked at the posted survey results. The fact that only 23% of the parents responded is problematic. I would guess that parents who wanted to add religious holidays were far more incentivized to participate then parents who had no real idea that there was a chance that we would add how many religious holidays as days off.

And I don't see a question on there regarding adding days off for religious holidays across the board. The question was new days off and extending the school year or adding async days. There was no option for not adding new days off or anything that said that the new days off would be for every religious groups day of importance. There was no place to say "I don't want new days added" except the comments. I know that I specifically said that I was not in favor of adding any new holidays in my comment section. Not to mention, the add new days and extend the school year did not get over 50% in any of the populations surveyed. I suspect that the only reason Option B, the asynch days BS, was so high was because there was no option for don't add new days at all.

Essentially, the survey did not allow anyone to say that they didn't want to add days. The Board wanted to add in a ton of religious holidays because the O day idea was so poorly developed and implemented, that the Board just added those days with no real input from anyone other then the various religious leaders that wanted those days. Had the board created a decent O day policy, no tests and assignments due on those days and maybe even the day after the O days so kids participating in said religious activity didn't feel like they had to work on the O day, and left it at that most folks would have been happy. Instead we end up with this ridiculous schedule based on the argument that Christmas is always off so every religious group should have a day off.

There were very vocal groups clamoring for the calendar with added religious days off. This was mainly Jewish groups to get YK and RH off, as they had been disappointed with the vote last year. I think the rest of the religious days added were so that the school board would look fair and balanced like it wasn't just catering to the Jewish advocates. So here we are.

This is not what happened. The SB put together an equity task force right before the pandemic with leaders from different faith communities, and asked them to come up with calendar recommendations. That task force chose four holidays (Eid, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Diwali) to add to the calendar and made that recommendation to the SB (calendars A and B from what feels like a million years ago). The SB ignored their own task force's recommendations and came up with the O Day nonsense from last year. Those religious groups were asked to come to the table and contribute to an equitable calendar, and then they were straight-up ignored, so of course they continued to advocate on their own behalf. All four of those days were always meant to be on the calendar. Eid and Diwali weren't added to look "fair and balanced" in the face of Jewish "clamor." They were carefully chosen by an interfaith task force that considered the religious significance and observance requirements of many holidays and decided on those four. Spring Break is also now realigned with Easter.

Why is a public school system soliciting recommendations from ANY religion?

x100. All of the religious holidays should be out, as should ANY input from faith groups. Take your religious concerns to parochial schools.
And what PP describes is essentially the same as prior PP. School board added in all major days for each religion to not make any one look favored - despite having the largest lobbying group from on particular faith. You can paint it however you want but some groups were significantly louder than others.