FCPS 2018-2019 school calendar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea why they switched to having teachers come back on a Friday for all the options. It is as if they are trying to say "Not only are we not going to pay you until the end of September, but now you get to lose one more weekend of the summer". I think 5 days prior to students starting is sufficient, especially with the students not starting until Tuesday the 28th (that makes 7 workdays before kids start). Starting on a Monday makes much more sense to me, especially since I am a music teacher and only see certain classes on certain days of the week. I will not see my Monday classes until the 3rd week of school. If they are just front loading the teacher workdays, I would much prefer they just reduce our contract by a few days. Having teacher workdays throughout the year is much more productive, IMO.

This is a major concern for me too. As someone who needs daycare for my children once I return to work, those teacher workdays are covered by my monthly SACC payment when they are DURING the school year. When the work days are before the school year, SACC hasn't started yet and now I have to pay for 7 or 8 days of daycare instead of 5. May be insignificant to some people but it's significant to me.

I also find no value in having all the PD frontloaded. I'd much prefer my PD to be during the year.

Agree with all of this. They keep talking about retaining teachers and teacher pay. I end up paying $700 to daycare because we can’t pay for just one day in the week. I don’t need another day to prep for students because it will be filled with meetings where important consultants talk about priorities that have nothing rro do with me. I know it won’t help me get more time setting up my classroom. I’d rather get paid less.

They should take that workday and make Veteran's Day a workday instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea why they switched to having teachers come back on a Friday for all the options. It is as if they are trying to say "Not only are we not going to pay you until the end of September, but now you get to lose one more weekend of the summer". I think 5 days prior to students starting is sufficient, especially with the students not starting until Tuesday the 28th (that makes 7 workdays before kids start). Starting on a Monday makes much more sense to me, especially since I am a music teacher and only see certain classes on certain days of the week. I will not see my Monday classes until the 3rd week of school. If they are just front loading the teacher workdays, I would much prefer they just reduce our contract by a few days. Having teacher workdays throughout the year is much more productive, IMO.

This is a major concern for me too. As someone who needs daycare for my children once I return to work, those teacher workdays are covered by my monthly SACC payment when they are DURING the school year. When the work days are before the school year, SACC hasn't started yet and now I have to pay for 7 or 8 days of daycare instead of 5. May be insignificant to some people but it's significant to me.

I also find no value in having all the PD frontloaded. I'd much prefer my PD to be during the year.

Agree with all of this. They keep talking about retaining teachers and teacher pay. I end up paying $700 to daycare because we can’t pay for just one day in the week. I don’t need another day to prep for students because it will be filled with meetings where important consultants talk about priorities that have nothing rro do with me. I know it won’t help me get more time setting up my classroom. I’d rather get paid less.

They should take that workday and make Veteran's Day a workday instead.

Please don't give the kid's Veteran's Day off. It's the one day a year my partner and I get free babysitting for the whole day and we have the house to ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have no idea why they switched to having teachers come back on a Friday for all the options. It is as if they are trying to say "Not only are we not going to pay you until the end of September, but now you get to lose one more weekend of the summer". I think 5 days prior to students starting is sufficient, especially with the students not starting until Tuesday the 28th (that makes 7 workdays before kids start). Starting on a Monday makes much more sense to me, especially since I am a music teacher and only see certain classes on certain days of the week. I will not see my Monday classes until the 3rd week of school. If they are just front loading the teacher workdays, I would much prefer they just reduce our contract by a few days. Having teacher workdays throughout the year is much more productive, IMO.

This is a major concern for me too. As someone who needs daycare for my children once I return to work, those teacher workdays are covered by my monthly SACC payment when they are DURING the school year. When the work days are before the school year, SACC hasn't started yet and now I have to pay for 7 or 8 days of daycare instead of 5. May be insignificant to some people but it's significant to me.

I also find no value in having all the PD frontloaded. I'd much prefer my PD to be during the year.

I'm the above poster. Ugh, my younger 2 are in SACC too. I'd not considered that.

[Anonymous]

Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

Friday the 21st would be the last day of school, with Xmas on a Tuesday. Or an I missing something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

Friday the 21st would be the last day of school, with Xmas on a Tuesday. Or an I missing something?

Still, the point is if you insist on an extra long break give us the time before the holidays. Not after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

Option A doesn't start break on December 17th. All four calendars start break on the 24th. http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/ASRQ5B6650AB/$file/2018-2019%20Standard%20School%20Year%20Calendar%20Option%20A.pdf

[Anonymous]

FCPS is ridiculous. They get everyone worked up over all these insane options, put out a non-valid survey, don’t bother with the results and just do whatever they want without actually listening to all the stakeholders. So many issues in the schools and the calendar should not cause this much angst every year, but they make a spectacle out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is ridiculous. They get everyone worked up over all these insane options, put out a non-valid survey, don’t bother with the results and just do whatever they want without actually listening to all the stakeholders. So many issues in the schools and the calendar should not cause this much angst every year, but they make a spectacle out of it.

They did the same thing with the start times change. Everyone gets excited about the options A-C and then they introduce D late, and ask for input...but they decided on D before they started and have zero intention of actually taking opinions into account. I'd like to see a formal voting process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is ridiculous. They get everyone worked up over all these insane options, put out a non-valid survey, don’t bother with the results and just do whatever they want without actually listening to all the stakeholders. So many issues in the schools and the calendar should not cause this much angst every year, but they make a spectacle out of it.

They did the same thing with the start times change. Everyone gets excited about the options A-C and then they introduce D late, and ask for input...but they decided on D before they started and have zero intention of actually taking opinions into account. I'd like to see a formal voting process.

I guess what happened is everyone was outraged about A & B but C didn't include any extra teacher prep time, which was something teachers said they needed. So then they had to quickly pull together D to be similar to C but with more teacher prep time. That's what I got from watching that video posted here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

I like the dec 23 winter break start date. Its hard to get ready for christmas when they get out a whole week before the holiday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

I like the dec 23 winter break start date. Its hard to get ready for christmas when they get out a whole week before the holiday.

December 23 is a Sunday, the start would be on December 22. Unless your kid has Saturday school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

I like the dec 23 winter break start date. Its hard to get ready for christmas when they get out a whole week before the holiday.

Where are you seeng a whole week before? All four calendars show the last day before break as December 21.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

I like the dec 23 winter break start date. Its hard to get ready for christmas when they get out a whole week before the holiday.

Where are you seeng a whole week before? All four calendars show the last day before break as December 21.

Maybe they're confusing it with this year, when that is the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is anyone bothered by the fact that ONLY OPTION A has winter break from Dec 17 to Jan 1st?

All other Options B to D makes winter break Dec 23 to Jan 4th!!

Who celebrates Christmas with family and BEGINS that vacation on Christmas Eve, and returns to work January 7th? Who returns to work JANUARY 7th? I have a TON I need to do BEFORE Christmas, not after. It is so bizarre. VOTE OPTION A.

I like the dec 23 winter break start date. Its hard to get ready for christmas when they get out a whole week before the holiday.

Where are you seeng a whole week before? All four calendars show the last day before break as December 21.

Maybe they're confusing it with this year, when that is the case.

Perhaps, but the one PP specifies option A starting on the 17th.