The response to MoCo's calendar change shows why the FCPS religious holidays will never go away

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Next year is less bananas because some of the religious holidays in the fall are on weekends. That’s the only reason - luck. I’m sure next time those holidays are on weekdays, we’ll be right back to this absurd calendar.

It would be very easy to model our calendar like those in the northeast - they start after Labor Day and end in the first half of June - and a lot of those districts have a week long break in February AND April! Also, predominately Christian / catholic schools up north never tie spring break to Easter.

Or look across the river to DCPS! They don’t have every religious holiday under the sun and have a more reasonable start date.

In my experience, Northeast schools go until the end of June. Never the first half. They do get a full week off for President’s Day, but their Spring Break is not consistent and rotates like ours does (although the point of reference isn’t always Holy Week. It could be the week after Easter or over Passover.) All in all, their school year is one week shorter than ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

Agreed, but I'd much rather go to school all of august, get out memorial day, and keep all the little days off mid year.

[Anonymous]

"The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June."

+1
The time post SOLs and APs is just not the same as before those big tests.

I'm in the camp of scrapping Columbus Day and Veteran's Day; we could trim a bit from the winter break so long as it goes 12/23 - 1/1; and yeah it's nuts to be giving off so many religious holidays that are absolutely not justified on a secular operation need basis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Next year is less bananas because some of the religious holidays in the fall are on weekends. That’s the only reason - luck. I’m sure next time those holidays are on weekdays, we’ll be right back to this absurd calendar.

It would be very easy to model our calendar like those in the northeast - they start after Labor Day and end in the first half of June - and a lot of those districts have a week long break in February AND April! Also, predominately Christian / catholic schools up north never tie spring break to Easter.

Or look across the river to DCPS! They don’t have every religious holiday under the sun and have a more reasonable start date.

In my experience, Northeast schools go until the end of June. Never the first half. They do get a full week off for President’s Day, but their Spring Break is not consistent and rotates like ours does (although the point of reference isn’t always Holy Week. It could be the week after Easter or over Passover.) All in all, their school year is one week shorter than ours.

The NE calendars tend not to have so many random one-off days scattered throughout the calendar. Frankly, that’s my biggest problem with our calendar. The fact that a five day week is the exception and not the rule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

The reason not to get past it is to keep the school board and the county supervisors accountable. Now is the time to get policy changes (SD on snow days, end to early release) that are common sense and cost-neutral (or cost savings) while the board and the county are aware of how unpopular the calendar are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

The reason not to get past it is to keep the school board and the county supervisors accountable. Now is the time to get policy changes (SD on snow days, end to early release) that are common sense and cost-neutral (or cost savings) while the board and the county are aware of how unpopular the calendar are.

Honest question, how do we do that? We complain on this board but what action needs to be taken? I’ll gladly email whoever I need to email, call who I need to call, etc., but there needs to be some organization and collaboration on the effort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

No matter what day on the calendar school lets out, there will be lots of end of the year activities during the last two or three weeks of the year. Getting out in May or early June will make no difference whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

No matter what day on the calendar school lets out, there will be lots of end of the year activities during the last two or three weeks of the year. Getting out in May or early June will make no difference whatsoever.

Yes it will, if the bulk of the instruction is done by MD at the latest - and in all likelihood, before that, because SOL’s for elementary are usually more like mid-May. My kid took his on May 6th and May 15th last year. They can push up the end of the year parties and field days. There really is a lot of wasted time at the end of the year for non early ES grades after the testing is done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the “make it a teacher workday” request? Looking at the 2026-27 calendar, every TW/SP/SD day is placed at the end of a quarter except for Indigenous People Day. How is converting Student Holidays to TW going to improve the calendar? They’ll still need the planning days between quarters. The only benefit I see is that SACC would have to be open those days, but that would require paying them more, and the county has already proven they’d rather cut services than do that.

Looking at this school year’s calendar I would make the following changes:

There isn’t much that can be done about the Election Day stuff so I guess that can remain a 4 day weekend, but I would dump all the quarter end 2 hour early releases. Or dump the 3 hour early releases for elementary, which absolutely should not have continued this school year.

School on Veterans Day like it always was in the past.

Move the staff development scheduled for Jan. 29 (Thurs) to the day before Thanksgiving. Move the QE date for Q2 to Jan. 29 and have it a regular school day, then Friday Jan. 30 a TW for grades.

April 10 SP day moved to May 26 (this is a TW day right now - combine the two as May 26 is not a QE). School as normal on April 10, could be an O day if they anticipate a lot of student absences for Orthodox Good Friday.

That gives us back 3 school days and we could end on June 12, a whole weekend earlier vs. the current June 17.

In these years where we have to have off mid week for every single religious/cultural holiday, I think tough decisions have to be made about even some of the federal holidays like Veterans and Columbus/Indigenous Peoples day. Fortunately next year’s calendar is a little more favorable as we get to start almost a full week later on August 24 vs. this year’s August 18.

The 2025-26 calendar probably shouldn't be used as a model on how the school year could be improved. It is an abnormally bad calendar that has filler work days to fill gaps in holidays. Feb 17 and May 26 were entirely pointless. Sept 9 was a special election fluke. Oct 13, Nov 11, and Apr 10 were expendable. When you look at the 2026-27 calendar, we start a week later and there’s less fat to trim.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2025-04/2026-2027-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

Yes next year’s calendar is a lot better, thank goodness. Hopefully this year’s will be uniquely bad and we can just get past it.

Even next school year though - I’d have them in school as normal on Veterans Day. Make November 25 (day before Thanksgiving) SD day and dump the SD day on Feb. 1 - have school as normal that day. And have them in school on Dec. 21 and 22 - Mon and Tues of winter break. That gives us 4 days back and we could end on June 11.

I know it seems petty to some. Who cares about 4 days. Well the most important thing of the year for grades 3-8 are the SOL’s given in May, and for HS it’s AP tests also given in May. The more time you have after Memorial Day, the more essentially wasted time you have. A lot of districts are done at Memorial Day or shortly thereafter, like the first weekend in June. The sooner we get out, the better. There’s a lot of “letting the clock run out” as the calendar drags into June.

The reason not to get past it is to keep the school board and the county supervisors accountable. Now is the time to get policy changes (SD on snow days, end to early release) that are common sense and cost-neutral (or cost savings) while the board and the county are aware of how unpopular the calendar are.

Honest question, how do we do that? We complain on this board but what action needs to be taken? I’ll gladly email whoever I need to email, call who I need to call, etc., but there needs to be some organization and collaboration on the effort.

Email directly your individual board member and board of supervisors representative. Articulate the financial hardship and emphasize the cost of suitable childcare (particularly in Providence when affordability is part of the campaign)

Then email the whole school board requesting specific information about policy changes. For example— what is the sundown date of early release, what is the justification for continuing in 2026-27, have the assessed the costs of doing so. Ask for other policy considerations
(my email asks for policy requiring training be made available virtually)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So this thread proves there is no real appetite to balance the calendar. You can’t pretend one day off for Eid is the thing that tips us into mid June end dates while being wholly unwilling to consider parting with any of the 2 full weeks of winter break. You all want your travel time at Christmas.

Not true. Plenty of people have pointed to not giving the federal holidays off for school. They are not given as days off in many places, there is no need to give them as days off here. Or turn federal holidays into teacher work days and decrease the number of teacher work days during the year. There are teacher work days that are not at the end of the quarter, remove those from the schedule.

And a lot of folks would be happy to have a week for Christmas but that does seem to be a solid no go for a large percentage of the population so I doubt that is going to change. But we could reclaim Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, President's Day, and MLK Day as either school days or teacher work days and pull back close to a week of summer vacation.

Even fewer places give off all of the religious and cultural holidays that we have off. This is a public school system, and one that is in close proximity to the heart of the federal government. We should talk about removing religious and cultural observances before doing away with the federal holidays. Plenty of us would like to keep the federal holidays and return to the more sensible calendars that we had five or six years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So this thread proves there is no real appetite to balance the calendar. You can’t pretend one day off for Eid is the thing that tips us into mid June end dates while being wholly unwilling to consider parting with any of the 2 full weeks of winter break. You all want your travel time at Christmas.

Not true. Plenty of people have pointed to not giving the federal holidays off for school. They are not given as days off in many places, there is no need to give them as days off here. Or turn federal holidays into teacher work days and decrease the number of teacher work days during the year. There are teacher work days that are not at the end of the quarter, remove those from the schedule.

And a lot of folks would be happy to have a week for Christmas but that does seem to be a solid no go for a large percentage of the population so I doubt that is going to change. But we could reclaim Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, President's Day, and MLK Day as either school days or teacher work days and pull back close to a week of summer vacation.

Even fewer places give off all of the religious and cultural holidays that we have off. This is a public school system, and one that is in close proximity to the heart of the federal government. We should talk about removing religious and cultural observances before doing away with the federal holidays. Plenty of us would like to keep the federal holidays and return to the more sensible calendars that we had five or six years ago.

+ 1000000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So this thread proves there is no real appetite to balance the calendar. You can’t pretend one day off for Eid is the thing that tips us into mid June end dates while being wholly unwilling to consider parting with any of the 2 full weeks of winter break. You all want your travel time at Christmas.

Not true. Plenty of people have pointed to not giving the federal holidays off for school. They are not given as days off in many places, there is no need to give them as days off here. Or turn federal holidays into teacher work days and decrease the number of teacher work days during the year. There are teacher work days that are not at the end of the quarter, remove those from the schedule.

And a lot of folks would be happy to have a week for Christmas but that does seem to be a solid no go for a large percentage of the population so I doubt that is going to change. But we could reclaim Columbus Day, Veteran's Day, President's Day, and MLK Day as either school days or teacher work days and pull back close to a week of summer vacation.

Even fewer places give off all of the religious and cultural holidays that we have off. This is a public school system, and one that is in close proximity to the heart of the federal government. We should talk about removing religious and cultural observances before doing away with the federal holidays. Plenty of us would like to keep the federal holidays and return to the more sensible calendars that we had five or six years ago.

I’d prefer a data driven approach. Which days lead to more student absences and staffing shortages. The makeup of the county has changed and a larger subset might want to observe a religious or cultural day over, say Columbus Day. Our calendar shouldn’t be dictated by feds who have the day off anyway.

[Anonymous]

Just extend the school year by a week and everyone can have their holidays and there will be make up days built in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just extend the school year by a week and everyone can have their holidays and there will be make up days built in.

That is literally the 2025-26 calendar. It’s a week longer than usual and threads are created weekly to complain about it.