Proposed APS Calendar Policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No religious holidays. Federal holidays only. Why is it so hard to understand it?

If teachers worked in some other workplace and were not teachers, that is what they would get - Federal holidays. They could use their leave days for religious holidays.

So you still don’t understand that if a teacher isn’t watching the kids some one else has to? We can’t find subs to watch the children when the teachers are out on religious holiday.
Is it okay to stop bus service on religious holidays but still have school? We can’t find bus drivers either. Have school but not serve hot lunch?
As a teacher I like routine but I am so very tired of covering another class or having my assistant cover another class. If this were a day care our license would be revoked for lack of staffing.

Do many teachers take off for religious holidays?

No.

Who answered no and how do you know?

Also what about bus drivers? My kid's bus driver is out a lot.

An APS employee

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure that religious holidays are a significant contributor to teacher absenteeism. In my experience, my kids seem to have subs nearly every day (for middle and high school), and extremely frequently when they were in elementary. I don't know if there are any public stats on teacher absences in APS, but in my experience, they appear to be rampant, even pre-pandemic.

[Anonymous]

At my school, many teacher absences are for required meetings, trainings, and planning days. Some years I miss the majority of my days for those reasons and not for sick leave/doctor appointments.

On DCUM I hear a lot of people complain about their teacher's absences, but we do get allotted sick leave and some years we have to use it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At this point, there is not a perfect schedule that will work for all APS families. They need to make a decision and set it in stone and be done so people can start planning. Especially for families that need to find coverage or care for holidays/breaks.

Well it would be really nice that if APS is going to follow Fairfax that maybe the county step up and provide child care in our schools on all of these days off. It's incredibly disruptive for students, especially young students and SWDs. It's incredibly expensive and time-consuming for families to figure out what to do on all these single days off. Seems like no on is much concerned about equity issues here. Less of a problem in Fairfax because the County provides the care in the schools on these days off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point, there is not a perfect schedule that will work for all APS families. They need to make a decision and set it in stone and be done so people can start planning. Especially for families that need to find coverage or care for holidays/breaks.

Well it would be really nice that if APS is going to follow Fairfax that maybe the county step up and provide child care in our schools on all of these days off. It's incredibly disruptive for students, especially young students and SWDs. It's incredibly expensive and time-consuming for families to figure out what to do on all these single days off. Seems like no on is much concerned about equity issues here. Less of a problem in Fairfax because the County provides the care in the schools on these days off.

It’s also a serious safety issue at the high school level too. Sure, those families don’t need childcare but the parents are still working. High school kids basically unsupervised and unstructured free days is not good recipe given the fentanyl crises.

[Anonymous]

The more I read comments here the more it seems this is a back door way to give teachers and staff more 4 day workweeks. There are lots of ways to honor religious holidays for those who recognize them. Why is equity around these days completely outweighing all other equity concerns around disruptions for students, safety for students, costs and difficulties of covering these days for families? 5 day weeks should be a priority. Figure out how to give staff and students days off for the religious days they observe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I read comments here the more it seems this is a back door way to give teachers and staff more 4 day workweeks. There are lots of ways to honor religious holidays for those who recognize them. Why is equity around these days completely outweighing all other equity concerns around disruptions for students, safety for students, costs and difficulties of covering these days for families? 5 day weeks should be a priority. Figure out how to give staff and students days off for the religious days they observe.

Exactly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I read comments here the more it seems this is a back door way to give teachers and staff more 4 day workweeks. There are lots of ways to honor religious holidays for those who recognize them. Why is equity around these days completely outweighing all other equity concerns around disruptions for students, safety for students, costs and difficulties of covering these days for families? 5 day weeks should be a priority. Figure out how to give staff and students days off for the religious days they observe.

What does equity even mean in this context? Has APS done a study how many students are subscribed to which religion and which culture to honor the holidays and festivals with the most "numbers" and take that as a starting point to rank holidays from that? My personal heritage's festivals and holidays are NOT honored or celebrated at APS (and I'm not expecting they would be), but next year I'm seriously considering taking my kids out and requesting them as an excused absence (which I haven't in the past)!

Regardless, the haphazard calendar, one day off here, one day there, none of them connected to other off-days is a logistical nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personal opinion by an ES teacher: all the days off for holidays, prep days, and PL days make school life inconsistent for students. Kids often ask "do we have school tomorrow?" because even they are aware of the erratic calendar. I like the idea of honoring state, federal holidays and diverse religious holidays, but it is too much.

If I ruled the world, we would find a way to schedule prep days next to holidays so that students can have just one long weekend a quarter, plus winter and spring break, and we would scrap PL altogether for the time being.

I agree with this 100%. Make the extra days off at least consecutive to create a few longer weekends instead of 3 and 4 day school weeks scattered (no school on Tuesday and Thursday next week, and no school on Wednesday the week after!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I read comments here the more it seems this is a back door way to give teachers and staff more 4 day workweeks. There are lots of ways to honor religious holidays for those who recognize them. Why is equity around these days completely outweighing all other equity concerns around disruptions for students, safety for students, costs and difficulties of covering these days for families? 5 day weeks should be a priority. Figure out how to give staff and students days off for the religious days they observe.

Wow, I had no idea other districts would model Fairfax's system for school calendars where they can't ever release one without numerous meetings and hand wringing. But to answer your question, Fairfax didn't collect any data about absences because the board thought religious holidays on the school calendar satisfied equity over all other concerns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I read comments here the more it seems this is a back door way to give teachers and staff more 4 day workweeks. There are lots of ways to honor religious holidays for those who recognize them. Why is equity around these days completely outweighing all other equity concerns around disruptions for students, safety for students, costs and difficulties of covering these days for families? 5 day weeks should be a priority. Figure out how to give staff and students days off for the religious days they observe.

Wow, I had no idea other districts would model Fairfax's system for school calendars where they can't ever release one without numerous meetings and hand wringing. But to answer your question, Fairfax didn't collect any data about absences because the board thought religious holidays on the school calendar satisfied equity over all other concerns.

Fairfax has years of data on it. https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/forms/Absence%20Data%20Final3.pdf

Schools legally required to have a reason for religious holidays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I read comments here the more it seems this is a back door way to give teachers and staff more 4 day workweeks. There are lots of ways to honor religious holidays for those who recognize them. Why is equity around these days completely outweighing all other equity concerns around disruptions for students, safety for students, costs and difficulties of covering these days for families? 5 day weeks should be a priority. Figure out how to give staff and students days off for the religious days they observe.

Wow, I had no idea other districts would model Fairfax's system for school calendars where they can't ever release one without numerous meetings and hand wringing. But to answer your question, Fairfax didn't collect any data about absences because the board thought religious holidays on the school calendar satisfied equity over all other concerns.

Fairfax has years of data on it. https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/forms/Absence%20Data%20Final3.pdf

Schools legally required to have a reason for religious holidays

That data in no way justifies having numerous religious holidays on the school calendar. There was maybe one or two days in last six years with enough absences to affect school operations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the next school year, the week before winter break is a 2-day week. I think it’s very likely that there will be more absences on those two days than there have historically been for (for example) on Diwali. But it still makes sense to have the school days for all those who do show up, & to be able to count those days.

that's not a good idea either. it should be two full weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the next school year, the week before winter break is a 2-day week. I think it’s very likely that there will be more absences on those two days than there have historically been for (for example) on Diwali. But it still makes sense to have the school days for all those who do show up, & to be able to count those days.

that's not a good idea either. it should be two full weeks.

I really have to disagree here. “Two full weeks” doesn’t sound like that much, but in practice it becomes more than that and will end up acting as a floor and not a ceiling.

This school year, the last day of school in 2022 was December 16. The kids didn’t get back to school until January 3. That’s 17 days. Christmas was on a Sunday. You literally could have had and extra four or five school days before going on break with minimal disruption.

I grew up in Massachusetts, going to a mediocre school in an otherwise high-performing state. The expectation was always that the last day of school before break would be Dec. 23, unless that produced something odd like a one-day week. I just checked and that’s still how they and lots of MA schools do it.

Ironically, the 24-25 school year is going to have Christmas on a Wednesday, which is the only situation in which I think a 2-week break is justified, because doing the traditional Dec. 24 to Jan. 1 break would produce a 1 day week on both sides of break. That might be why they’re trying to ram it through now, when it appears reasonable, and the more outlandish outcomes are farther off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the next school year, the week before winter break is a 2-day week. I think it’s very likely that there will be more absences on those two days than there have historically been for (for example) on Diwali. But it still makes sense to have the school days for all those who do show up, & to be able to count those days.

that's not a good idea either. it should be two full weeks.

I really have to disagree here. “Two full weeks” doesn’t sound like that much, but in practice it becomes more than that and will end up acting as a floor and not a ceiling.

This school year, the last day of school in 2022 was December 16. The kids didn’t get back to school until January 3. That’s 17 days. Christmas was on a Sunday. You literally could have had and extra four or five school days before going on break with minimal disruption.

I grew up in Massachusetts, going to a mediocre school in an otherwise high-performing state. The expectation was always that the last day of school before break would be Dec. 23, unless that produced something odd like a one-day week. I just checked and that’s still how they and lots of MA schools do it.

Ironically, the 24-25 school year is going to have Christmas on a Wednesday, which is the only situation in which I think a 2-week break is justified, because doing the traditional Dec. 24 to Jan. 1 break would produce a 1 day week on both sides of break. That might be why they’re trying to ram it through now, when it appears reasonable, and the more outlandish outcomes are farther off.

Exactly. And I think syphax wants this because they’re getting paid for these days now. It’s a mess to get elementary kids back on track after such a long winter break