School Calendar 2023-2024

[Anonymous]

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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

[Anonymous]

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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Due to the republicans a few years back, it is state law that all schools that are open before Labor Day have to close for the Friday before Labor Day. I agree with getting rid of the religious holidays. Just pointing out a fact re: Friday before Labor Day.

[Anonymous]

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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Due to the republicans a few years back, it is state law that all schools that are open before Labor Day have to close for the Friday before Labor Day. I agree with getting rid of the religious holidays. Just pointing out a fact re: Friday before Labor Day.

Ugh, that's ridiculous. I have no idea why that would even be necessary. So I guess we are forced to keep that then and drop the religious days. Perhaps we can drop Indigenous Peopl's, too, as we must close for election days?

[Anonymous]

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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Once again, random people on the Internet can come up with a better school calendar than all of the lauded professional FCPS staff and the idiotic School Board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

So this actually adopted calendar is not any of the choices we were given to vote on, correct?

[Anonymous]

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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Once again, random people on the Internet can come up with a better school calendar than all of the lauded professional FCPS staff and the idiotic School Board.

No, because that random person didn’t even know about the state law that requires schools to be closed the Friday before Labor Day. All we have here are armchair experts who know nothing.

[Anonymous]

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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Once again, random people on the Internet can come up with a better school calendar than all of the lauded professional FCPS staff and the idiotic School Board.

No, because that random person didn’t even know about the state law that requires schools to be closed the Friday before Labor Day. All we have here are armchair experts who know nothing.

Nonsense. Most of us knew about the law and most of us can come up with better calendars.

[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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Once again, random people on the Internet can come up with a better school calendar than all of the lauded professional FCPS staff and the idiotic School Board.

No, because that random person didn’t even know about the state law that requires schools to be closed the Friday before Labor Day. All we have here are armchair experts who know nothing.

Nonsense. Most of us knew about the law and most of us can come up with better calendars.

To be fair, FCPS could also come up with a better calendar if the SB had not forced them to add all the religious days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are the stupidest calendar options. If they made winter break a week and a half, then they could tie spring break to the end of the quarter. We are planning on taking two weeks off at spring break right now.

I have a friend who works with the school board (not a member). She said they thought they could tie spring break to the end of the quarter, and were all excited about it, and then realized that Eid was going to be in the middle of that one week so decided to leave everything where it was and tie the end of quarter workdays to Eid instead.

Ugh.

Can we just forgo all religious holidays and blame it on the atheists wanting normal weeks and scheduling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

So this actually adopted calendar is not any of the choices we were given to vote on, correct?

Yep, the superintendent changed one calendar on the day of the vote and then that's what was approved for THREE years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are the stupidest calendar options. If they made winter break a week and a half, then they could tie spring break to the end of the quarter. We are planning on taking two weeks off at spring break right now.

I have a friend who works with the school board (not a member). She said they thought they could tie spring break to the end of the quarter, and were all excited about it, and then realized that Eid was going to be in the middle of that one week so decided to leave everything where it was and tie the end of quarter workdays to Eid instead.

Ugh.

Can we just forgo all religious holidays and blame it on the atheists wanting normal weeks and scheduling?

+1

[Anonymous]

Do you think because we now have three years of calendars, DCUM will finally stop making posts about it every 2-6 weeks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are the stupidest calendar options. If they made winter break a week and a half, then they could tie spring break to the end of the quarter. We are planning on taking two weeks off at spring break right now.

I have a friend who works with the school board (not a member). She said they thought they could tie spring break to the end of the quarter, and were all excited about it, and then realized that Eid was going to be in the middle of that one week so decided to leave everything where it was and tie the end of quarter workdays to Eid instead.

Ugh.

Can we just forgo all religious holidays and blame it on the atheists wanting normal weeks and scheduling?

+1

Or just tie everything to the federal holidays and call it patriotism?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you think because we now have three years of calendars, DCUM will finally stop making posts about it every 2-6 weeks?

I give it another month of hoopla and then it’s back to bashing teachers.

[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.

Nonsense. It's the BS religious holidays that need to go, not the TWDs. Ax Diwali, YK, Eid and RH. Eliminate the extra Labor Day Friday, and only keep the Monday, and we're good. Then you can add back the TWDs.

These religious holidays are freaking ridiculous. And god help us when they decide that they weren't woke enough and add Lunar New Year and Chuseok in the next go-round of calendar votes.

Once again, random people on the Internet can come up with a better school calendar than all of the lauded professional FCPS staff and the idiotic School Board.

No, because that random person didn’t even know about the state law that requires schools to be closed the Friday before Labor Day. All we have here are armchair experts who know nothing.

Nonsense. Most of us knew about the law and most of us can come up with better calendars.

Coming up with a calendar is easy. Cut the superfluous religious days and we're fine. It is really that simple.