School Calendar 2023-2024

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The calendar is basically what we have now but they majorly screwed up with the teacher workdays. The "fixed" the calendar at the expense of the teachers. This is what they always do. We bear the burden of all their bad decisions.

Teachers don't need 3 or 4 workdays at the end of the year. There's nothing to do. I need the work days DURING the school year. You know...when I have work to do. We can't use those work days for planning for next year b/c a lot of us don't know what we're teaching next year. We can't use them for our online trainings (I think the estimate is that it's about two days worth of watching videos for the yearly mandatory trainings) because they don't count for next year unless done after July 1. We can't use them to grade papers, write IEPs, write narratives, write goals, update gradebooks, mark progress, etc because...we have no students at that point and the year is over. All of that's been done already. So the only thing left is for us to sit in more useless PD that no one asked for or needs. We need unencumbered work time DURING the school year. Period. And the school board is oblivious to that because most of them have never taught a day in their lives.

This relentless crusade for more 5 days weeks is exactly what another poster said...a direct response to the addition of the religious holidays. The SB needs to man up and just call a tell these parents tough crap. The religious days were added. It is was it is. And the work days DURING the year are needed as well. They should have balanced those out as best they could while not short changing either. But instead, we get this mess. The fact that there were so many no votes + reluctant yeses should have been clue #1 that there was still work to be done.

I agree. They are always speaking of supporting teachers, but giving those days at the end doesn't help grading during the year. But honestly, no teacher will work all those days at the end.

I think those PW days are essentially comp time days for what teachers will need to do on their own time during the year.

PPs are right: SB prioritized adding religious holidays. Maybe teachers can use the religious holidays to get their work done???

+1
And Megan was suggesting combining more TWDs with the holidays to address this. But if you are a teacher who does not celebrate the holiday you have off why not use just it for the grading / prep you need to do?

Because that's the equivalent of telling me to just "work on a saturday". I mean, yes, I will absolutely use that time to get work done because otherwise it doesn't get done, just like every weekend I grade for hours (and I actually took a sub day, today, using my own personal leave...to catch up on grading).

We are contracted to work 195 days. Saying "just work on the religious days" makes it 210 days or whatever. We aren't paid for that. If you want to extend the contract to make those work days, then staff deserves to be compensated since the expectation is they are working more.

You'd be getting the days paid out as comp time (PW) at the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The calendar is basically what we have now but they majorly screwed up with the teacher workdays. The "fixed" the calendar at the expense of the teachers. This is what they always do. We bear the burden of all their bad decisions.

Teachers don't need 3 or 4 workdays at the end of the year. There's nothing to do. I need the work days DURING the school year. You know...when I have work to do. We can't use those work days for planning for next year b/c a lot of us don't know what we're teaching next year. We can't use them for our online trainings (I think the estimate is that it's about two days worth of watching videos for the yearly mandatory trainings) because they don't count for next year unless done after July 1. We can't use them to grade papers, write IEPs, write narratives, write goals, update gradebooks, mark progress, etc because...we have no students at that point and the year is over. All of that's been done already. So the only thing left is for us to sit in more useless PD that no one asked for or needs. We need unencumbered work time DURING the school year. Period. And the school board is oblivious to that because most of them have never taught a day in their lives.

This relentless crusade for more 5 days weeks is exactly what another poster said...a direct response to the addition of the religious holidays. The SB needs to man up and just call a tell these parents tough crap. The religious days were added. It is was it is. And the work days DURING the year are needed as well. They should have balanced those out as best they could while not short changing either. But instead, we get this mess. The fact that there were so many no votes + reluctant yeses should have been clue #1 that there was still work to be done.

I agree. They are always speaking of supporting teachers, but giving those days at the end doesn't help grading during the year. But honestly, no teacher will work all those days at the end.

I think those PW days are essentially comp time days for what teachers will need to do on their own time during the year.

PPs are right: SB prioritized adding religious holidays. Maybe teachers can use the religious holidays to get their work done???

+1
And Megan was suggesting combining more TWDs with the holidays to address this. But if you are a teacher who does not celebrate the holiday you have off why not use just it for the grading / prep you need to do?

Because that's the equivalent of telling me to just "work on a saturday". I mean, yes, I will absolutely use that time to get work done because otherwise it doesn't get done, just like every weekend I grade for hours (and I actually took a sub day, today, using my own personal leave...to catch up on grading).

We are contracted to work 195 days. Saying "just work on the religious days" makes it 210 days or whatever. We aren't paid for that. If you want to extend the contract to make those work days, then staff deserves to be compensated since the expectation is they are working more.

To clarify, I'm find making them official TWDs (part of our contract that we are paid for), I'm not okay with them being a holiday for staff and students and just expecting staff to work anyway.

Fair point. Ok back to my original view - these should be all TWDs if we can’t get back to a secular calendar and have to keep them. Teachers should get two floating days to use as PTO and can use on the TWDs if they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The calendar is basically what we have now but they majorly screwed up with the teacher workdays. The "fixed" the calendar at the expense of the teachers. This is what they always do. We bear the burden of all their bad decisions.

Teachers don't need 3 or 4 workdays at the end of the year. There's nothing to do. I need the work days DURING the school year. You know...when I have work to do. We can't use those work days for planning for next year b/c a lot of us don't know what we're teaching next year. We can't use them for our online trainings (I think the estimate is that it's about two days worth of watching videos for the yearly mandatory trainings) because they don't count for next year unless done after July 1. We can't use them to grade papers, write IEPs, write narratives, write goals, update gradebooks, mark progress, etc because...we have no students at that point and the year is over. All of that's been done already. So the only thing left is for us to sit in more useless PD that no one asked for or needs. We need unencumbered work time DURING the school year. Period. And the school board is oblivious to that because most of them have never taught a day in their lives.

This relentless crusade for more 5 days weeks is exactly what another poster said...a direct response to the addition of the religious holidays. The SB needs to man up and just call a tell these parents tough crap. The religious days were added. It is was it is. And the work days DURING the year are needed as well. They should have balanced those out as best they could while not short changing either. But instead, we get this mess. The fact that there were so many no votes + reluctant yeses should have been clue #1 that there was still work to be done.

I agree. They are always speaking of supporting teachers, but giving those days at the end doesn't help grading during the year. But honestly, no teacher will work all those days at the end.

I think those PW days are essentially comp time days for what teachers will need to do on their own time during the year.

PPs are right: SB prioritized adding religious holidays. Maybe teachers can use the religious holidays to get their work done???

+1
And Megan was suggesting combining more TWDs with the holidays to address this. But if you are a teacher who does not celebrate the holiday you have off why not use just it for the grading / prep you need to do?

It was at this point, I think, Cohen got offended (again) that teachers would have to choose between observing their holy day and doing professional development work. 🤷🏻‍♀️

That was Meren. The solution is 2 floating days so those that need the day OFF can take it still. But the vast majority of the staff do not need off on the religious holidays and it makes not sense to pretend they are all celebrating that day just because a small percentage are.

Idk why Meren was so offended. Everyone should just be happy that kids wouldn’t be in school that day and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The calendar is basically what we have now but they majorly screwed up with the teacher workdays. The "fixed" the calendar at the expense of the teachers. This is what they always do. We bear the burden of all their bad decisions.

Teachers don't need 3 or 4 workdays at the end of the year. There's nothing to do. I need the work days DURING the school year. You know...when I have work to do. We can't use those work days for planning for next year b/c a lot of us don't know what we're teaching next year. We can't use them for our online trainings (I think the estimate is that it's about two days worth of watching videos for the yearly mandatory trainings) because they don't count for next year unless done after July 1. We can't use them to grade papers, write IEPs, write narratives, write goals, update gradebooks, mark progress, etc because...we have no students at that point and the year is over. All of that's been done already. So the only thing left is for us to sit in more useless PD that no one asked for or needs. We need unencumbered work time DURING the school year. Period. And the school board is oblivious to that because most of them have never taught a day in their lives.

This relentless crusade for more 5 days weeks is exactly what another poster said...a direct response to the addition of the religious holidays. The SB needs to man up and just call a tell these parents tough crap. The religious days were added. It is was it is. And the work days DURING the year are needed as well. They should have balanced those out as best they could while not short changing either. But instead, we get this mess. The fact that there were so many no votes + reluctant yeses should have been clue #1 that there was still work to be done.

I agree. They are always speaking of supporting teachers, but giving those days at the end doesn't help grading during the year. But honestly, no teacher will work all those days at the end.

I think those PW days are essentially comp time days for what teachers will need to do on their own time during the year.

PPs are right: SB prioritized adding religious holidays. Maybe teachers can use the religious holidays to get their work done???

+1
And Megan was suggesting combining more TWDs with the holidays to address this. But if you are a teacher who does not celebrate the holiday you have off why not use just it for the grading / prep you need to do?

Because that's the equivalent of telling me to just "work on a saturday". I mean, yes, I will absolutely use that time to get work done because otherwise it doesn't get done, just like every weekend I grade for hours (and I actually took a sub day, today, using my own personal leave...to catch up on grading).

We are contracted to work 195 days. Saying "just work on the religious days" makes it 210 days or whatever. We aren't paid for that. If you want to extend the contract to make those work days, then staff deserves to be compensated since the expectation is they are working more.

Be glad you don’t have lesson plan and move on. I’m saying this as a Jew and with a spouse as a teacher.

[Anonymous]

The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

The absentee data indicates there is zero need for these to be holidays. Yes, we should absolutely just pick one to be the H and the other one becomes a TW and give teachers a floating PTO day to use if they need the 2nd one fully off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

And, that year we get the same problem as this year - starting early and ending late.

Start Aug 18 2025
Finish June 17 2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they never got rid of early release Mondays, teachers wouldn’t need all these teacher workdays throughout the year. They really never should have done away with that.

No other school system in the country has half day Mondays. There is literally no reason we needed them. We can just do what every other school system in the country has done since the 80s.

Umm our friends in Falls Church City have half day most Wednesdays. It's not as uncommon as you think.

I’d be okay with the return of 1/2 days, but I’d want them on Fridays. (ES parent who has other childcare arrangements) When 1/2 day Mondays were a thing, would SACC start early for those families enrolled?

That wouldn’t help teachers. They need Monday afternoons to plan for the week. By Friday they are exhausted. It is not productive for them to have Friday early release days. Also that would make it difficult to schedule quizzes or tests on Fridays. Kids often need the week to prep for a quiz or test. Parents would also abuse early release Fridays by going on long weekends and having their kids skip school Fridays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

This. I'm Jewish and growing up, when I was in high school and missing school became more difficult, we went to school on Rosh Hashanah. We would go to synagogue for the evening service. We always missed school for Yom Kippur. That is THE holiest day of the year. I don't think RH should be a school holiday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

Or get rid of all of them since this is a public, secular school system.

Any school board candidate who will advocate for getting rid of these absurd days off of school has my vote.

[Anonymous]

So is there an actual approved calendar (at least for 2023-2024) that is official now? Is there a link someone can provide?

I was hoping that would be the case today.

[Anonymous]

Is it this? "Blue amended V2 Two week winter break"

https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/files/CNW29Q012041/$file/2023-2024-standard-school-year-calendar-option-BLUE-DRAFT-VERSION-2-AMENDED.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

Or get rid of all of them since this is a public, secular school system.

Any school board candidate who will advocate for getting rid of these absurd days off of school has my vote.

Diverse school systems do have some of these days off. Diwali doesn’t seem to be a common holiday though and I’m not sure about Orthodox Good Friday. The thing is though, even teachers in these religions don’t need ALL of these days off. A teacher would need the Jewish holidays but not the others, the Eids but not the others, etc. You could easily make them all TWD but give a floating holiday for the teachers who have a religious observance on those days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The calendar is basically what we have now but they majorly screwed up with the teacher workdays. The "fixed" the calendar at the expense of the teachers. This is what they always do. We bear the burden of all their bad decisions.

Teachers don't need 3 or 4 workdays at the end of the year. There's nothing to do. I need the work days DURING the school year. You know...when I have work to do. We can't use those work days for planning for next year b/c a lot of us don't know what we're teaching next year. We can't use them for our online trainings (I think the estimate is that it's about two days worth of watching videos for the yearly mandatory trainings) because they don't count for next year unless done after July 1. We can't use them to grade papers, write IEPs, write narratives, write goals, update gradebooks, mark progress, etc because...we have no students at that point and the year is over. All of that's been done already. So the only thing left is for us to sit in more useless PD that no one asked for or needs. We need unencumbered work time DURING the school year. Period. And the school board is oblivious to that because most of them have never taught a day in their lives.

This relentless crusade for more 5 days weeks is exactly what another poster said...a direct response to the addition of the religious holidays. The SB needs to man up and just call a tell these parents tough crap. The religious days were added. It is was it is. And the work days DURING the year are needed as well. They should have balanced those out as best they could while not short changing either. But instead, we get this mess. The fact that there were so many no votes + reluctant yeses should have been clue #1 that there was still work to be done.

I agree. They are always speaking of supporting teachers, but giving those days at the end doesn't help grading during the year. But honestly, no teacher will work all those days at the end.

I think those PW days are essentially comp time days for what teachers will need to do on their own time during the year.

PPs are right: SB prioritized adding religious holidays. Maybe teachers can use the religious holidays to get their work done???

+1
And Megan was suggesting combining more TWDs with the holidays to address this. But if you are a teacher who does not celebrate the holiday you have off why not use just it for the grading / prep you need to do?

Because that's the equivalent of telling me to just "work on a saturday". I mean, yes, I will absolutely use that time to get work done because otherwise it doesn't get done, just like every weekend I grade for hours (and I actually took a sub day, today, using my own personal leave...to catch up on grading).

We are contracted to work 195 days. Saying "just work on the religious days" makes it 210 days or whatever. We aren't paid for that. If you want to extend the contract to make those work days, then staff deserves to be compensated since the expectation is they are working more.

Be glad you don’t have lesson plan and move on. I’m saying this as a Jew and with a spouse as a teacher.

Be glad I don't have lesson plan?

I don't understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The religious holiday "problem" is helped the next two school years by many of them falling on weekends. In the 23-24 calendar there are only two stand-alone religious holidays:

Yom Kippur 9/25
Eid al Fitr 4/10

In the 24-25 calendar there are four, but two of them are paired with quarter-ends, so again, only two "random" days off.

Rosh Hashanah 10/3
Diwali 11/1
Lunar New Year 1/29 (TW, combined with Q2 end)
Eid al Fitr 3/31 (combined with Q3 end)

The problem comes in the 25-26 calendar when a bunch of them come during the school year. I'm sure it would be completely insensitive, but I wonder if they could gather a religious contingent to pick one between Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur and one of the Eids. Or just look at the absentee data from the past.

Rosh Hashanah 9/23
Yom Kippur 10/2
Diwali 10/21
Lunar New Year 2/17 (TW)
Eid-al-Fitr 3/20
Orthodox Good Friday (TW)
Eid-al-Adha

Or get rid of all of them since this is a public, secular school system.

Any school board candidate who will advocate for getting rid of these absurd days off of school has my vote.

Diverse school systems do have some of these days off. Diwali doesn’t seem to be a common holiday though and I’m not sure about Orthodox Good Friday. The thing is though, even teachers in these religions don’t need ALL of these days off. A teacher would need the Jewish holidays but not the others, the Eids but not the others, etc. You could easily make them all TWD but give a floating holiday for the teachers who have a religious observance on those days.

We get 5 personal days a year. If the religious holiday is so important to you, take a personal day. Or if you really want to give all staff 2 more floating holidays, awesome--but I'm taking "National go for a hike with your dog day" and "Take my kids to the aquarium" as my religions, because I'm atheist.