Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IF you want

Full 2 weeks + for Xmas break, (used to be 10 days, now it's more like 14-16 days)

+

Wed-Fri off at Tgiving (used to be only Thurs. and Fri. off with early release on Wed.)

+

A bunch of religious days off

+

ALL the federal holidays off

+

Full week for spring break

... well, at some point you are going to have start earlier and end later just to fit in something close to the required amount of hours.

You don't get to eat your piece of cake and save it at the same time. So, we start earlier and end later with a lot of messed up weeks in between.

The parents aren’t asking for that. We aren’t asking for 15 day Christmas and all those miscellaneous holidays for every religion now. Spring break has always been a week that they now unattached to Easter and then they add extra days around Easter too. Parents voted on a better calendar and the school board picked some crazy ass horrible schedule instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate it. One week before Labor Day is fine. Beyond that and you pretty much lose August as a vacation month. Same for June. Beyond 1.5 weeks takes away that month as a vacation month. Plus the water in the pools is colder then. With all the activities starting in August, it makes sense to have 8 weeks free of activities for families to actually have a break from school.

YOU HAVE THREE FULL WEEKS in August to vacate and that isn't enough for you? You can't make a vacation to fit in a three week period? I think that's a planning or mental failure on your part, not a failure of the school calendar.

No school sports are in August

Football already has practice twice a day. If you don’t come you don’t play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate it. One week before Labor Day is fine. Beyond that and you pretty much lose August as a vacation month. Same for June. Beyond 1.5 weeks takes away that month as a vacation month. Plus the water in the pools is colder then. With all the activities starting in August, it makes sense to have 8 weeks free of activities for families to actually have a break from school.

YOU HAVE THREE FULL WEEKS in August to vacate and that isn't enough for you? You can't make a vacation to fit in a three week period? I think that's a planning or mental failure on your part, not a failure of the school calendar.

No school sports are in August

Football already has practice twice a day. If you don’t come you don’t play.

Football is so dumb. What parent allows their kid to play a sport that results in brain damage? Mind boggling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes it is true that many never go on vacation...but why should only the super rich who can pay premium prices be able to go? We can't even visit family over thanksgiving the flight prices are too high.

So yes, I suppose I can do a driving trip to visit family in august, but it would be nice if every once in awhile I can take my family to a resort in the off season (August).

It is positively insane that people are arguing that school calendars should be made to maximize their ability to travel internationally for 2+ weeks over the winter break

FIFY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IF you want

Full 2 weeks + for Xmas break, (used to be 10 days, now it's more like 14-16 days)

+

Wed-Fri off at Tgiving (used to be only Thurs. and Fri. off with early release on Wed.)

+

A bunch of religious days off

+

ALL the federal holidays off

+

Full week for spring break

... well, at some point you are going to have start earlier and end later just to fit in something close to the required amount of hours.

You don't get to eat your piece of cake and save it at the same time. So, we start earlier and end later with a lot of messed up weeks in between.

The parents aren’t asking for that. We aren’t asking for 15 day Christmas and all those miscellaneous holidays for every religion now. Spring break has always been a week that they now unattached to Easter and then they add extra days around Easter too. Parents voted on a better calendar and the school board picked some crazy ass horrible schedule instead.

46 percent of parents wanted a longer winter break from the survey.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There should be no school in July or August.

Let kids be kids FFS.

You mean no school in June and July.

School starting in mid August is ideal.

Going to school in June is a waste of time and nice weather.

No, July and August. Summer.

Many school facilities have insufficient HVAC so August is terrible.

Agreed. As I said before, it’s too damn hot in august to have to go to school. June is fine. August and July are SUMMER and it’s a SUMMER break. Pp is correct. There shouldn’t be any school in July and August.

Now this is just crazy talk.

[Anonymous]

We should be out by Memorial Day. Other districts manage to start in August and be out by Memorial Day. Somehow FCPS has us now starting mid August and still going to mid June. It’s ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hate it. One week before Labor Day is fine. Beyond that and you pretty much lose August as a vacation month. Same for June. Beyond 1.5 weeks takes away that month as a vacation month. Plus the water in the pools is colder then. With all the activities starting in August, it makes sense to have 8 weeks free of activities for families to actually have a break from school.

YOU HAVE THREE FULL WEEKS in August to vacate and that isn't enough for you? You can't make a vacation to fit in a three week period? I think that's a planning or mental failure on your part, not a failure of the school calendar.

No school sports are in August

Football already has practice twice a day. If you don’t come you don’t play.

Football is so dumb. What parent allows their kid to play a sport that results in brain damage? Mind boggling.

Switch football with most other sports with competitive high school teams. They also practice twice each day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We should be out by Memorial Day. Other districts manage to start in August and be out by Memorial Day. Somehow FCPS has us now starting mid August and still going to mid June. It’s ridiculous.

What is your ideal summer length? Right now, it is scheduled as 9 to 9.5 weeks in FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simply don’t understand it. Raised in PA. Started school the day after Labor Day, had Columbus and Veterans days off, Thanksgiving, Friday after Thanksgiving and the following Monday (first day of hunting season) off in the fall. Two week break at Christmas, both Presidents birthdays in February, spring break week at Easter and out no later than June10th.

No teacher in service days, no days of at the end of the quarter, no CRT training, etc. All teacher training, usually a week or less, done in August.

Worked fine then, could work now.

I grew up in PA to the same schedule. But the problem is that there are a lot more people now who are other religions besides Christianity. Many school districts have now added Jewish and Muslim holidays to the calendar or at least scheduled teacher professional days on those holidays. Many districts have found that they have a high teacher-requested days off for Jewish or Muslim holidays from staff that observe those holidays. And with a sub shortage, they often don't have sufficient coverage for those days. They also have a lot of student approved-absenteeism on those days for families that observe them and they found that there was a lot of extra work to accommodate those students. So, in many jurisdictions, it is easier to have those days off. Even if they put a professional day, then a teacher taking a vacation day on the professional day does not require a substitute be acquired to fill the teacher's space. The teacher then makes up the work at some other time, just like if she had to take off any other work day.

Also, unlike "back in the day" there are a lot more non-teaching requirements for teachers. There are a lot more standardized tests, documentation that teachers have to write. And grading and commenting via on-line tools like Canvas and other tools are more time-consuming that just hand-writing a grade on a form. Plus there are many, many more IEPs and 504s (which were unheard of back in our day) and documenting and meeting for those individually takes up a lot more time. With all of the extracurricular requirements on teachers, they need the professional days to meet those requirements. I know many teachers who put in 20-30 hours per week outside of the classroom just to tread water and keep up with all of the external requirements put on teachers these days. That didn't happen when we were kids.

So, the conditions are not the same as when we were kids. So the old schedule doesn't work ay more.

I get times have changed and that there is a greater diversity in the classroom and workforce and that IEPs didn’t exist in the past. But instead of a slew of PhDs in Education cluttering up the middle management ranks get a few with PhDs in operations and logistics. They could set up staffing schedules to cover time needed for teachers for leave and to support IEPs, etc. FCPS has one of the largest bus fleets in the US which could I am sure be better managed.

Like it or not FCPS is part educational institution and part business. They are barely hanging on, on the educational side, so they need to hire business and operations professionals to keep the back office functions running smoothly.

But as you can see from other posts their management of information technology both pre and post pandemic is a joke.

FCPS can tighten up the calendar. 23% of kids still start after Labor Day. If FCPS is going to start school in August it should end in May.

FCPS needs to use that $3+ billion every year effectively and they are simply not doing that and so teachers and students suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Simply don’t understand it. Raised in PA. Started school the day after Labor Day, had Columbus and Veterans days off, Thanksgiving, Friday after Thanksgiving and the following Monday (first day of hunting season) off in the fall. Two week break at Christmas, both Presidents birthdays in February, spring break week at Easter and out no later than June10th.

No teacher in service days, no days of at the end of the quarter, no CRT training, etc. All teacher training, usually a week or less, done in August.

Worked fine then, could work now.

I grew up in PA to the same schedule. But the problem is that there are a lot more people now who are other religions besides Christianity. Many school districts have now added Jewish and Muslim holidays to the calendar or at least scheduled teacher professional days on those holidays. Many districts have found that they have a high teacher-requested days off for Jewish or Muslim holidays from staff that observe those holidays. And with a sub shortage, they often don't have sufficient coverage for those days. They also have a lot of student approved-absenteeism on those days for families that observe them and they found that there was a lot of extra work to accommodate those students. So, in many jurisdictions, it is easier to have those days off. Even if they put a professional day, then a teacher taking a vacation day on the professional day does not require a substitute be acquired to fill the teacher's space. The teacher then makes up the work at some other time, just like if she had to take off any other work day.

Also, unlike "back in the day" there are a lot more non-teaching requirements for teachers. There are a lot more standardized tests, documentation that teachers have to write. And grading and commenting via on-line tools like Canvas and other tools are more time-consuming that just hand-writing a grade on a form. Plus there are many, many more IEPs and 504s (which were unheard of back in our day) and documenting and meeting for those individually takes up a lot more time. With all of the extracurricular requirements on teachers, they need the professional days to meet those requirements. I know many teachers who put in 20-30 hours per week outside of the classroom just to tread water and keep up with all of the external requirements put on teachers these days. That didn't happen when we were kids.

So, the conditions are not the same as when we were kids. So the old schedule doesn't work ay more.

I get times have changed and that there is a greater diversity in the classroom and workforce and that IEPs didn’t exist in the past. But instead of a slew of PhDs in Education cluttering up the middle management ranks get a few with PhDs in operations and logistics. They could set up staffing schedules to cover time needed for teachers for leave and to support IEPs, etc. FCPS has one of the largest bus fleets in the US which could I am sure be better managed.

Like it or not FCPS is part educational institution and part business. They are barely hanging on, on the educational side, so they need to hire business and operations professionals to keep the back office functions running smoothly.

But as you can see from other posts their management of information technology both pre and post pandemic is a joke.

FCPS can tighten up the calendar. 23% of kids still start after Labor Day. If FCPS is going to start school in August it should end in May.

FCPS needs to use that $3+ billion every year effectively and they are simply not doing that and so teachers and students suffer.

The bolded!

I was a teacher. Long ago, I told colleagues that we needed someone to run the business side of the school and someone to run the academics--because we couldn't seem to get both out of one principal. Same goes for the whole system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AGREED!!!

But they did all those surveys and we have a lot of transplants in the NOVA region from the south who think school should end at memorial day and start again in mid-August. It does not make sense to anyone who lives here long term and realizes that the government basically shuts down in August - which has a ripple effect to private sector. We should have summer from mid-June until Labor Day, possibly the week before Labor if it's a particularly late one.

Although the real issue is that the school year is too long because they added tons of professional development days that the teachers don't even want, and they added lot of religious holidays to assuage their guilt of tying spring break to Easter (again, wanted on the surveys because it helps FCPS line up with other districts) and giving a "Christmas" break.

Labor day to mid/late June is the worst.

We end up with a month of zero learning from SOLs/AP exams in mid May to the end of the school year.

+1. Late August start is ideal. Now if we can just get them to separate Spring Break from Easter I'd be very happy.

I like to travel over Easter. I'd also like Good Friday off.

I mean, good for you. But it's a busy travel period/more expensive and lumped in with a holiday that is mandatory in the Christian calendar, and that lots of people like to spend with family. Not really a break, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AGREED!!!

But they did all those surveys and we have a lot of transplants in the NOVA region from the south who think school should end at memorial day and start again in mid-August. It does not make sense to anyone who lives here long term and realizes that the government basically shuts down in August - which has a ripple effect to private sector. We should have summer from mid-June until Labor Day, possibly the week before Labor if it's a particularly late one.

Although the real issue is that the school year is too long because they added tons of professional development days that the teachers don't even want, and they added lot of religious holidays to assuage their guilt of tying spring break to Easter (again, wanted on the surveys because it helps FCPS line up with other districts) and giving a "Christmas" break.

Labor day to mid/late June is the worst.

We end up with a month of zero learning from SOLs/AP exams in mid May to the end of the school year.

So, four weeks in July is not enough for you?

+1. Late August start is ideal. Now if we can just get them to separate Spring Break from Easter I'd be very happy.

I like to travel over Easter. I'd also like Good Friday off.

I mean, good for you. But it's a busy travel period/more expensive and lumped in with a holiday that is mandatory in the Christian calendar, and that lots of people like to spend with family. Not really a break, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AGREED!!!

But they did all those surveys and we have a lot of transplants in the NOVA region from the south who think school should end at memorial day and start again in mid-August. It does not make sense to anyone who lives here long term and realizes that the government basically shuts down in August - which has a ripple effect to private sector. We should have summer from mid-June until Labor Day, possibly the week before Labor if it's a particularly late one.

Although the real issue is that the school year is too long because they added tons of professional development days that the teachers don't even want, and they added lot of religious holidays to assuage their guilt of tying spring break to Easter (again, wanted on the surveys because it helps FCPS line up with other districts) and giving a "Christmas" break.

Labor day to mid/late June is the worst.

We end up with a month of zero learning from SOLs/AP exams in mid May to the end of the school year.

+1. Late August start is ideal. Now if we can just get them to separate Spring Break from Easter I'd be very happy.

I like to travel over Easter. I'd also like Good Friday off.

I mean, good for you. But it's a busy travel period/more expensive and lumped in with a holiday that is mandatory in the Christian calendar, and that lots of people like to spend with family. Not really a break, IMO.

So, travel in July. The whole month is free!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes it is true that many never go on vacation...but why should only the super rich who can pay premium prices be able to go? We can't even visit family over thanksgiving the flight prices are too high.

So yes, I suppose I can do a driving trip to visit family in august, but it would be nice if every once in awhile I can take my family to a resort in the off season (August).

It is positively inane that people are arguing that school calendars should be made to maximize their ability to go to a “resort.”

+1. This whole thread is crazy. It's a bunch of rich parents arguing why the entire school calendar affecting thousands of kids should be modified to best fit their vacation schedules. FFS! Y'all are seriously out of touch with the working world.