Primarily for northern VA counties: Fix spring break to a stationary week!

[Anonymous]

I wrote the PP and I just want to add that many other countries have major holidays (e.g. Ramadan or Lunar New Year) with floating calendar dates. Most people in those countries live just fine with having a major holiday where the dates vary from year to year.

Also for families who like traveling, it's a good thing that not all DMV schools have spring breaks in the same week; otherwise flight tickets would be even more expensive during that week.

[Anonymous]

It’s not like you can’t look up when Easter is two years out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a non-religious person (immigrant from a non-Christian country) and I don't understand this rant. School calendars are published wayyyyyyy ahead of time - for example, my older kid is in APS and the 2023-2024 school year calendar was published in December 2021, which gives parents 15+ month to plan for 2024 spring break vacations or childcare arrangement. Most people don't even plan vacations that far ahead. Maybe when my kids are older (now my older kid is in K) I'll understand this issue better. But for now I couldn't see why this is an issue based on what OP and some PPs were ranting about.

no it wasn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's completely fine to align Spring Break with Easter. This is a predominantly Christian nation, so as a practical matter it makes sense to give a holiday when large numbers of people are likely to be off.

I mean, for Pete's sake, they now cancel school for Jewish, Muslim and Hindu holidays, and those are miniscule populations, except in certain clusters where there are higher concentrations of those populations.

This. Hindu population is in single digits at our school, and single percentages across the district I think… yet new holiday… but Easter Monday is scrapped next year. And yes, that a nationwide holiday in most or all of Europe and South America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's completely fine to align Spring Break with Easter. This is a predominantly Christian nation, so as a practical matter it makes sense to give a holiday when large numbers of people are likely to be off.

I mean, for Pete's sake, they now cancel school for Jewish, Muslim and Hindu holidays, and those are miniscule populations, except in certain clusters where there are higher concentrations of those populations.

This. Hindu population is in single digits at our school, and single percentages across the district I think… yet new holiday… but Easter Monday is scrapped next year. And yes, that a nationwide holiday in most or all of Europe and South America.

At Christian schools yes, in public schools no!
Give Good Friday off if too many people would be out but not that same entire week unless it coincides by accident that year (not every year).
Georgia schools tend to be off the 1st week of April (which is surprisingly late for them based on their last day of school in May) but it's the same every year it just happened to be the week before Easter this year and the week after Easter next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I think would be great is a week off in February and a week off in April like they do in New England.

New England has many school systems. Those different school systems have various schemes for the school calendar. My relatives in New England report that their school system's "Spring Break" is always the week just before Easter, for example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I think would be great is a week off in February and a week off in April like they do in New England.

New England has many school systems. Those different school systems have various schemes for the school calendar. My relatives in New England report that their school system's "Spring Break" is always the week just before Easter, for example.

They do the ridiculous floating break too! Typically New England schools do the 3rd full week of April but I guess it's not all New England schools.
The week before Easter is the WORST setup (even worse then the week after Easter despite both floating)!!

[Anonymous]

You need to convince Fairfax to do it. Arlington will follow whatever Fairfax does, and I'm sure most of the other counties will too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to convince Fairfax to do it. Arlington will follow whatever Fairfax does, and I'm sure most of the other counties will too

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not like you can’t look up when Easter is two years out.

This. Who cares? Such an odd thing to be mad about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to convince Fairfax to do it. Arlington will follow whatever Fairfax does, and I'm sure most of the other counties will too

Fairfax DID do it last year (2022) and there was a high revolt because the other counties didn’t follow and teachers had different breaks from their own kids. FCPS came right back to the standard Easter break the following year. So your theory is wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to convince Fairfax to do it. Arlington will follow whatever Fairfax does, and I'm sure most of the other counties will too

Fairfax DID do it last year (2022) and there was a high revolt because the other counties didn’t follow and teachers had different breaks from their own kids. FCPS came right back to the standard Easter break the following year. So your theory is wrong.

I think after that happened, the surrounding counties have realized that was a big mistake and are trying to coordinate. That will not happen again.

[Anonymous]

I mean, we have a floating date for Eid now, so not sure why we can’t keep the floating date for the holiday that the majority of kids in APS/FCCPS/LCPS/FCPS/ACPS celebrate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to convince Fairfax to do it. Arlington will follow whatever Fairfax does, and I'm sure most of the other counties will too

Fairfax DID do it last year (2022) and there was a high revolt because the other counties didn’t follow and teachers had different breaks from their own kids. FCPS came right back to the standard Easter break the following year. So your theory is wrong.

It's not wrong. Fairfax has been setting its calendar WAAAAY late in the last few years, after all the other counties, so it wasn't possible in that instance bc the other counties had already put out their calendars (which were their best guesses on what Fairfax would do!). It was a blindside.

If FFx got its act together and put forth a calendar more than 4 months before the start of school you will absolutely see the other counties fall in line. Arlington in its calendar discussions this spring talked about how that different spring break week was terrible and they don't want to go through that again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean, we have a floating date for Eid now, so not sure why we can’t keep the floating date for the holiday that the majority of kids in APS/FCCPS/LCPS/FCPS/ACPS celebrate?

Western Easter is on a Sunday, so no matter when Spring Break is, kids will have it off. Kids who celebrate Orthodox Easter will have that off, too, because, again, it's on a Sunday.

"Easter Monday" is not an actual religious holiday, so we can stop worrying about that.