How DO we get the calendar changed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone who couldn’t watch:

1. A motion is going to the board for Veterans Day and Indigenous People’s day 2026 to be school days.
2. Strong advocacy for early release to 1. Be moved to Friday and 2. Not be scheduled to occur on any week with a different holiday/second early release.

Some discussions around changing number of snowdays to get a week back and what to do about elections.

This is pretty reasonable. They’ll get pushback on Friday early releases because absences will be too high. Also, if they remove 5 snow days, they should have a contingency for canceling early releases, to preserve hours for emergency closures.

I think that’s my main sticking point with the calendar this year. We have missed so much time that we need to dump the early releases going forward. But they just won’t do it. Other districts extend the calendar or cut into spring break if there are too many weather days … we don’t even need to do that. We could get time back by just cancelling the early releases for the rest of this school year.

What early releases? I hope this isn't just about ES. The Calendar this year was a disaster for everyone!!!!

Veterans Day and Indigenous People’s day seem to be about getting five day weeks for everyone not just ES.

The justification for moving ES early release to Friday was that Wednesday was disruptive to class flow and teachers reported to the board it was a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is fd up beyond belief. I’m a democrat ready and willing to vote any way it takes to end this shit for school situation and our taxes aren’t cheap. Just tell me who to vote for or against. I’m done with the dicking around.

Frisch was pretty unimpressive in the meeting. You can tell he’s not a parent.

[Anonymous]

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DS4TMZ781CB8/$file/Proposed%20Calendar%20policy%201344%20for%20March%2017%202026.pdf

Draft policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is fd up beyond belief. I’m a democrat ready and willing to vote any way it takes to end this shit for school situation and our taxes aren’t cheap. Just tell me who to vote for or against. I’m done with the dicking around.

Frisch was pretty unimpressive in the meeting. You can tell he’s not a parent.

He’s always been unimpressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DS4TMZ781CB8/$file/Proposed%20Calendar%20policy%201344%20for%20March%2017%202026.pdf

Draft policy

Says no more than 4 early release days. Does that mean no more ES early release once a month?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DS4TMZ781CB8/$file/Proposed%20Calendar%20policy%201344%20for%20March%2017%202026.pdf

Draft policy

Says no more than 4 early release days. Does that mean no more ES early release once a month?

I wondered about that, but ES early releases aren’t included in the calendar the school board votes on. They’re never published on any version of the calendar that I’ve seen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/DS4TMZ781CB8/$file/Proposed%20Calendar%20policy%201344%20for%20March%2017%202026.pdf

Draft policy

Says no more than 4 early release days. Does that mean no more ES early release once a month?

I believe they were getting around that by calling them “limited” early release days since they only apply to elementary and not to preschool/pre-K or middle and HS.

[Anonymous]

They will do a 10 year study and then 10 years later do the opposite of what is asked by the parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For anyone who couldn’t watch:

1. A motion is going to the board for Veterans Day and Indigenous People’s day 2026 to be school days.
2. Strong advocacy for early release to 1. Be moved to Friday and 2. Not be scheduled to occur on any week with a different holiday/second early release.

Some discussions around changing number of snowdays to get a week back and what to do about elections.

So the one-year only early release for elementary is now permanent?

Yes. Very much needed planning time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For anyone who couldn’t watch:

1. A motion is going to the board for Veterans Day and Indigenous People’s day 2026 to be school days.
2. Strong advocacy for early release to 1. Be moved to Friday and 2. Not be scheduled to occur on any week with a different holiday/second early release.

Some discussions around changing number of snowdays to get a week back and what to do about elections.

I checked the calendar for next year and there are actually not too many weeks that qualify under point 2. Especially if they continue to divide up the county for which schools have the early release. And some of the days that do qualify, if they do it on Fridays, are right before a Monday holiday or a break. By my count the only qualifying days would be - not counting anything in August or June when they don’t do them:

9/18
10/2
10/9 (Monday 10/12 is a student holiday)
10/23
11/20 (Thanksgiving break starts Weds 11/25)
12/4, 11, and 18 (18 is day before winter break)
1/8
1/15 (Monday 1/18 is MLK day)
2/12 (Monday 2/15 is Presidents’ Day)
2/26
3/5
3/19 (day before spring break)
4/2, 4/9, 4/30
5/7
5/14 (Monday 5/17 is a day off)

I count 13 Fridays on days that don’t already have a day off or an early release and aren’t right before a long weekend or break …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have had it with the FCPS calendar. The days off have gotten totally out off hand. At some point FCPS decided it need to celebrate EVERY possibly , religious and non religious holiday under the sun.
It is out of control.

Throw in all the weather delays and closing and kids are never in school. I know, I know, but they still meet their hours and are above the VA standard. Sure, who cares when it come to elementary, but HS teachers, especially, those teaching AP classes plan their year around having a certain number of days of school, and given that most AP exams are early May they already have a condensed timeline. Elementary parents come back to the conversation with your kid in in HS and school actually matters. Why not have a higher bar and if there aren't weather related closing we get more instruction.

Stop electing and reelecting these goobers on the SB - especially ones without children in FCPS

This+++

Yep ++++ please vote all of them off the SB. Enough is enough.

[Anonymous]

Now the school board is floating the idea of removing Veterans Day and IP Day next year and shifting early release to Fridays. At this point, it feels like they’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Families have slogged through a year of chopped‑up weeks, pointless closures, and “professional days” that seem to appear out of thin air - and this is the grand solution?

Let’s be honest: this isn’t meaningful reform. It’s tokenism dressed up as “responsiveness,” a quick political talking point they can wave around while avoiding the real conversation about how dysfunctional the calendar has become. Scrapping two holidays and shuffling early release to Fridays doesn’t fix anything. It’s cosmetic, short‑term, and designed to look like action without actually requiring any.

If they want credibility, they need to stop playing calendar whack‑a‑mole and address the structural mess they’ve created. Families deserve a school year that isn’t a patchwork of interruptions. Students deserve instructional time that isn’t constantly carved up. And the board needs to stop pretending that these tiny, performative tweaks count as leadership.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now the school board is floating the idea of removing Veterans Day and IP Day next year and shifting early release to Fridays. At this point, it feels like they’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Families have slogged through a year of chopped‑up weeks, pointless closures, and “professional days” that seem to appear out of thin air - and this is the grand solution?

Let’s be honest: this isn’t meaningful reform. It’s tokenism dressed up as “responsiveness,” a quick political talking point they can wave around while avoiding the real conversation about how dysfunctional the calendar has become. Scrapping two holidays and shuffling early release to Fridays doesn’t fix anything. It’s cosmetic, short‑term, and designed to look like action without actually requiring any.

If they want credibility, they need to stop playing calendar whack‑a‑mole and address the structural mess they’ve created. Families deserve a school year that isn’t a patchwork of interruptions. Students deserve instructional time that isn’t constantly carved up. And the board needs to stop pretending that these tiny, performative tweaks count as leadership.

Yes, they are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. And also, there was a reason they moved the elementary early release days from Mondays to Wednesdays: Too many staff took the Mondays off. Do they not expect that same problem with Fridays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now the school board is floating the idea of removing Veterans Day and IP Day next year and shifting early release to Fridays. At this point, it feels like they’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Families have slogged through a year of chopped‑up weeks, pointless closures, and “professional days” that seem to appear out of thin air - and this is the grand solution?

Let’s be honest: this isn’t meaningful reform. It’s tokenism dressed up as “responsiveness,” a quick political talking point they can wave around while avoiding the real conversation about how dysfunctional the calendar has become. Scrapping two holidays and shuffling early release to Fridays doesn’t fix anything. It’s cosmetic, short‑term, and designed to look like action without actually requiring any.

If they want credibility, they need to stop playing calendar whack‑a‑mole and address the structural mess they’ve created. Families deserve a school year that isn’t a patchwork of interruptions. Students deserve instructional time that isn’t constantly carved up. And the board needs to stop pretending that these tiny, performative tweaks count as leadership.

Yes, they are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. And also, there was a reason they moved the elementary early release days from Mondays to Wednesdays: Too many staff took the Mondays off. Do they not expect that same problem with Fridays?

I think the board is stuck with something intensely unpopular, that they made more unpopular, but putting it on Wednesday.

The right decision is to get rid of it, but taking no action just builds resentment, so this splits the baby.

[Anonymous]

If Mondays and Fridays result in too many absences and Wednesdays are too disruptive, then perhaps the existence of ES early release is creating more problems than it’s solving.

More than half the early releases took place during already broken weeks for our school. Perhaps they would have been fine during a clean 5 day week. Although, it’s already been pointed out that it isn’t achievable in November, and will lead to several 4 day weekends.