How DO we get the calendar changed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Stop the early release days all together. Those days are a total waste. Of the 4.5 hours - 1 hour is lunch and recess. Between morning mtg and transitions it is about an hour of learning and that is if the teacher uses it to teach. Not all do. It is a joke of a day.

Our school does “family time”. Which is a waste. At least cancel recess and specials and actually teach something in the 4.5 hours they have. Gah.

It really depends on the teacher and school how effective the time is. My kid who is in full time AAP at the center school still learns a significant amount on those days. My kid’s teachers create a special schedule on early release days to minimize impact to instruction time. But it’s a wasted day for my 2nd grader at the base school. The teacher while very kind is not effective in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full day or early release. I blame the poor leadership at the base school. Getting rid of early release teacher prep time will not solve the problem at our base school and would actually make it worse. I support the teacher prep time. FCCPS has even more Wednesday early releases and it seems to work for them.

FCCPS has made other trade-off like having religious holidays with school in session instead of having them off entirely. We can’t just take their early release schedule without looking at the other operational choices that make it palatable.

FCCPS has something like 2700 students in the entire district. The city is 2 square miles and its population is 70% white. Surely you can see why a school with 177,000 students and majority minority demographics might balance cultural observances differently.

What data support FCPS needing to handle cultural observances differently? Since when did planning a school calendar become an exercise in making everyone feel good? The only reason I can think of is for school board members to pander to certain groups whose votes they want when they go to run for office.

I can't get over the week of April 6. Off that Monday AND Friday, right after spring break? For Easter Monday? Come on. I am a cradle Catholic who grew up in an area with a ton of Catholics from various countries, and we never celebrated that. The number of people who do in FCPS must be super tiny.

Welcome to woke liberal world, where everybody wins a trophy and every tiny religious group gets a school holiday regardless if it makes sense.

And I'm a Catholic too and don't want Easter Monday off either. I want my kids in school!

The Monday after Spring Break is a Teacher Workday, not a holiday for Easter Monday. Stop blaming holidays for this year's bad calendar when what we're all mostly upset about is poor decision-making choices about the weather.

Umm, this year's awful calendar is entirely caused by religious holidays and unnecessary TW. Not aware of any poor decisions about the weather.

Just curious why you think that TW are unnecessary.

Also, a question for all - would you be ok with a situation where the religious/cultural holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha) were held as "maybe" holidays where the holidays would only occur at schools where there wouldn't be a critical mass of staff (incl. transportation). That would be unknown until the school year started and staff would have to call off for them. It would introduce a lot of uncertainty and potentially fairness concerns if only some schools were out, but it might be the only realistic way to handle it.

Before these holidays were added as days off, were there operational difficulties on those dates? Did any school not manage to open and operate?

+1
FCPS has never shown data indicating operational breakdown on these days before the holidays were implemented. Surely that info exists if the absences were so massive to necessitate closing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Stop the early release days all together. Those days are a total waste. Of the 4.5 hours - 1 hour is lunch and recess. Between morning mtg and transitions it is about an hour of learning and that is if the teacher uses it to teach. Not all do. It is a joke of a day.

Our school does “family time”. Which is a waste. At least cancel recess and specials and actually teach something in the 4.5 hours they have. Gah.

It really depends on the teacher and school how effective the time is. My kid who is in full time AAP at the center school still learns a significant amount on those days. My kid’s teachers create a special schedule on early release days to minimize impact to instruction time. But it’s a wasted day for my 2nd grader at the base school. The teacher while very kind is not effective in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full day or early release. I blame the poor leadership at the base school. Getting rid of early release teacher prep time will not solve the problem at our base school and would actually make it worse. I support the teacher prep time. FCCPS has even more Wednesday early releases and it seems to work for them.

FCCPS has made other trade-off like having religious holidays with school in session instead of having them off entirely. We can’t just take their early release schedule without looking at the other operational choices that make it palatable.

FCCPS has something like 2700 students in the entire district. The city is 2 square miles and its population is 70% white. Surely you can see why a school with 177,000 students and majority minority demographics might balance cultural observances differently.

What data support FCPS needing to handle cultural observances differently? Since when did planning a school calendar become an exercise in making everyone feel good? The only reason I can think of is for school board members to pander to certain groups whose votes they want when they go to run for office.

I can't get over the week of April 6. Off that Monday AND Friday, right after spring break? For Easter Monday? Come on. I am a cradle Catholic who grew up in an area with a ton of Catholics from various countries, and we never celebrated that. The number of people who do in FCPS must be super tiny.

Welcome to woke liberal world, where everybody wins a trophy and every tiny religious group gets a school holiday regardless if it makes sense.

And I'm a Catholic too and don't want Easter Monday off either. I want my kids in school!

The Monday after Spring Break is a Teacher Workday, not a holiday for Easter Monday. Stop blaming holidays for this year's bad calendar when what we're all mostly upset about is poor decision-making choices about the weather.

Umm, this year's awful calendar is entirely caused by religious holidays and unnecessary TW. Not aware of any poor decisions about the weather.

Just curious why you think that TW are unnecessary.

Also, a question for all - would you be ok with a situation where the religious/cultural holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha) were held as "maybe" holidays where the holidays would only occur at schools where there wouldn't be a critical mass of staff (incl. transportation). That would be unknown until the school year started and staff would have to call off for them. It would introduce a lot of uncertainty and potentially fairness concerns if only some schools were out, but it might be the only realistic way to handle it.

Why are we assuming that schools would not be able to operate on those holidays? I feel like someone made this up at some point to justify having these as holidays. No one has ever presented a shred of data to support this. A random school board member throwing it out as speculation is not data.

There was never any evidence of operational difficulties at any school for any of these religious holidays. Based on the data that FCPS collected, random other days had higher absentee rates for students and staff and they all continued to operate. There is no operational justification for these added religious and cultural holidays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Stop the early release days all together. Those days are a total waste. Of the 4.5 hours - 1 hour is lunch and recess. Between morning mtg and transitions it is about an hour of learning and that is if the teacher uses it to teach. Not all do. It is a joke of a day.

Our school does “family time”. Which is a waste. At least cancel recess and specials and actually teach something in the 4.5 hours they have. Gah.

It really depends on the teacher and school how effective the time is. My kid who is in full time AAP at the center school still learns a significant amount on those days. My kid’s teachers create a special schedule on early release days to minimize impact to instruction time. But it’s a wasted day for my 2nd grader at the base school. The teacher while very kind is not effective in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full day or early release. I blame the poor leadership at the base school. Getting rid of early release teacher prep time will not solve the problem at our base school and would actually make it worse. I support the teacher prep time. FCCPS has even more Wednesday early releases and it seems to work for them.

FCCPS has made other trade-off like having religious holidays with school in session instead of having them off entirely. We can’t just take their early release schedule without looking at the other operational choices that make it palatable.

FCCPS has something like 2700 students in the entire district. The city is 2 square miles and its population is 70% white. Surely you can see why a school with 177,000 students and majority minority demographics might balance cultural observances differently.

What data support FCPS needing to handle cultural observances differently? Since when did planning a school calendar become an exercise in making everyone feel good? The only reason I can think of is for school board members to pander to certain groups whose votes they want when they go to run for office.

I can't get over the week of April 6. Off that Monday AND Friday, right after spring break? For Easter Monday? Come on. I am a cradle Catholic who grew up in an area with a ton of Catholics from various countries, and we never celebrated that. The number of people who do in FCPS must be super tiny.

Welcome to woke liberal world, where everybody wins a trophy and every tiny religious group gets a school holiday regardless if it makes sense.

And I'm a Catholic too and don't want Easter Monday off either. I want my kids in school!

The Monday after Spring Break is a Teacher Workday, not a holiday for Easter Monday. Stop blaming holidays for this year's bad calendar when what we're all mostly upset about is poor decision-making choices about the weather.

Umm, this year's awful calendar is entirely caused by religious holidays and unnecessary TW. Not aware of any poor decisions about the weather.

Just curious why you think that TW are unnecessary.

Also, a question for all - would you be ok with a situation where the religious/cultural holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha) were held as "maybe" holidays where the holidays would only occur at schools where there wouldn't be a critical mass of staff (incl. transportation). That would be unknown until the school year started and staff would have to call off for them. It would introduce a lot of uncertainty and potentially fairness concerns if only some schools were out, but it might be the only realistic way to handle it.

Before these holidays were added as days off, were there operational difficulties on those dates? Did any school not manage to open and operate?

+1
FCPS has never shown data indicating operational breakdown on these days before the holidays were implemented. Surely that info exists if the absences were so massive to necessitate closing.

When the data showed there were no issues with absences on those days, the operational justification was quietly dropped and never discussed again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Stop the early release days all together. Those days are a total waste. Of the 4.5 hours - 1 hour is lunch and recess. Between morning mtg and transitions it is about an hour of learning and that is if the teacher uses it to teach. Not all do. It is a joke of a day.

Our school does “family time”. Which is a waste. At least cancel recess and specials and actually teach something in the 4.5 hours they have. Gah.

It really depends on the teacher and school how effective the time is. My kid who is in full time AAP at the center school still learns a significant amount on those days. My kid’s teachers create a special schedule on early release days to minimize impact to instruction time. But it’s a wasted day for my 2nd grader at the base school. The teacher while very kind is not effective in general. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full day or early release. I blame the poor leadership at the base school. Getting rid of early release teacher prep time will not solve the problem at our base school and would actually make it worse. I support the teacher prep time. FCCPS has even more Wednesday early releases and it seems to work for them.

FCCPS has made other trade-off like having religious holidays with school in session instead of having them off entirely. We can’t just take their early release schedule without looking at the other operational choices that make it palatable.

FCCPS has something like 2700 students in the entire district. The city is 2 square miles and its population is 70% white. Surely you can see why a school with 177,000 students and majority minority demographics might balance cultural observances differently.

What data support FCPS needing to handle cultural observances differently? Since when did planning a school calendar become an exercise in making everyone feel good? The only reason I can think of is for school board members to pander to certain groups whose votes they want when they go to run for office.

I can't get over the week of April 6. Off that Monday AND Friday, right after spring break? For Easter Monday? Come on. I am a cradle Catholic who grew up in an area with a ton of Catholics from various countries, and we never celebrated that. The number of people who do in FCPS must be super tiny.

Welcome to woke liberal world, where everybody wins a trophy and every tiny religious group gets a school holiday regardless if it makes sense.

And I'm a Catholic too and don't want Easter Monday off either. I want my kids in school!

The Monday after Spring Break is a Teacher Workday, not a holiday for Easter Monday. Stop blaming holidays for this year's bad calendar when what we're all mostly upset about is poor decision-making choices about the weather.

Why is there a teacher workday in the same week as a "School Planning Day" (what even is that) the week immediately following spring break? Whose brilliant idea was that?

I am not mad about weather decisions. I am mad that not a single one of these fools looked at the calendar holistically when they put in all these holidays, teacher workdays, school planning days, and early releases. Nor did they consider the additional impact that unplanned disruptions such as weather and election days would have on a calendar that is already full of holes. Why are we accepting this as normal? It's not! Other school districts in our state have the same rules as we do, yet they have figured out how not to screw up a calendar so badly.

+1

[Anonymous]

I sent a note to the board and super. I assume they have heard from others as well. It is such a mess I almost can't even believe it. every week is like a joke of an education.

[Anonymous]

FCPS is too big and not one size fits all. It looks as if it took all of the religious holidays that all the surrounding school districts have and placed them into calendar. LCPS has Diwali off but not some of the Jewish holidays. MCPS has the Jewish holidays off but not Diwali. Split apart FCPS. The districts adjacent to LCPS or MCPS can align their calendars accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sent a note to the board and super. I assume they have heard from others as well. It is such a mess I almost can't even believe it. every week is like a joke of an education.

And go back and look at prior calendar votes. Every time more religious days and workday/planning days were added, this current School Board rubber stamped them. Not one serious dissenting view/vote - not one discerning view that perhaps could project how ridiculous calendar would be (esp. when you add in unexpected weather events etc).

Please remember this come election time. And PLEASE - could some moderates please run?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I sent a note to the board and super. I assume they have heard from others as well. It is such a mess I almost can't even believe it. every week is like a joke of an education.

They must have but I think sustained pressure— and expressing support for specific actions like getting back two fall school weeks— will be needed.

[Anonymous]

The fact we are off tomorrow (just before spring break) and the fact we are off two days after spring break is really bad.
How have we allowed this to happen?

I don't understand how we can keep quiet.

Email your Board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I sent a note to the board and super. I assume they have heard from others as well. It is such a mess I almost can't even believe it. every week is like a joke of an education.

They must have but I think sustained pressure— and expressing support for specific actions like getting back two fall school weeks— will be needed.

It seems like the only way anything changes is if this gets daylight outside FCPS.  Anyone have media contacts or federal/state/local oversight POCs, education reporters, legislative staffers, anyone who actually has the ability to look into what’s happening in FCPS elementary schools right now?

The weekly chaos isn’t normal, and it shouldn’t be on parents to just absorb it in silence.  Whatever this is, it’s not functioning, and it shouldn’t stay buried inside the FCPS bubble.

[Anonymous]

The difference between the calendar the school board approves and what the state requires is 82 hours. These 82 hours have been used in 2 hour increments, 3 hour increments, or full day increments this year. There seems to be NO oversight in how the superintendent uses these hours. In an ideal year, 0 of those 82 hours would be used. Instead the superintendent has been budgeting like she has to spend them all.

With these hours the published calendar can change by 13 days. This year the hours have been stretched out over 20+days of partial disruptions. For elementary students 36 of these hours had nothing to do with hazardous weather conditions.

The biggest step in reforming the calendar that I see is establishing operational procedures around using these hours.

[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.

No incumbents. Vote against anyone currently on the board.

Say it again! No incumbents!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No incumbents. Vote against anyone currently on the board.

Say it again! No incumbents!

Someone make a bumper sticker.

[Anonymous]

Remember that the inconsistent schedule will be evident on test scores. Never allow your kid to retake an SOL. That score is a reflection on FCPS—not your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember that the inconsistent schedule will be evident on test scores. Never allow your kid to retake an SOL. That score is a reflection on FCPS—not your kid.

My kids will pass the SOLs despite this calendar but it still doesn't make it ok. This calendar has been terrible for my kids and their mental health. This quarter has been far too disjointed and they are paying the price.

It is not acceptable to have this many days off, this many shortened weeks, this many early releases. I don't need child care but I do need proper education. I have no idea why they are off tomorrow, off for spring break and then off again right after.

Who came up with this hell? It can't be anyone thinking about education and what is best for kids.