School Calendar 2023-2024

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is such BS. I think this school board knows that they'll be voted out in November so wanted to make a long-term calendar since they won't be around to do it next year. One of my main motivators for voting is the calendar so this is just infuriating.

[Anonymous]

Whose idea was it to consult with religious leaders when making the calendar? And who did they meet with?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m usually working on plans for each day the night before.

[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.

They can’t get rid of 4 days for Labor Day. That’s the law if you start before Labor Day.

[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.

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.

These are the major issues:
All the religious holidays
And being married to 180 days rather than 990 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

These are the major issues:
All the religious holidays
And being married to 180 days rather than 990 hours.

Major issues:
Professional days
Religious holidays
Veterans Day

[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?

Seriously. I honestly believe FCPS reads this board and did 3 years because
That is what people here wanted.

[Anonymous]

Three professional workdays after the students leave seems odd. I’d like to know if they are going to be designated as teacher workdays (TW), Staff Development (SD) or School Planning (SP) days and if the expectations will be the same across all schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

These are the major issues:
All the religious holidays
And being married to 180 days rather than 990 hours.

Major issues:
Professional days
Religious holidays
Veterans Day

You forgot some major issues:
Two week christmas break
Winter break tied to Christmas
Spring break tied to Easter

[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 doubt this is a set 3 year calendar. The actual date for Eid isn't known until a week or so before it happens so that will require cancellation of school events and an email about calendar change. Also the school board wants to tie every day off to a religious holiday which will eventually offend someone and require their religious holiday be declared a professional work day. Or instead of CRT the next Republican incursion into NoVA will be suing the FCPS school board for taking days off from federal holidays, claiming they were removing days off from Christian holidays, and favoring certain religions over others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The approved 2025-26 calendar is a mess. Very limited number of five day weeks and the kids are not done until late June.

In 2025-26:

Start date is August 18

End date is June 17



Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

These are the major issues:
All the religious holidays
And being married to 180 days rather than 990 hours.

Major issues:
Professional days
Religious holidays
Veterans Day

You forgot some major issues:
Two week christmas break
Winter break tied to Christmas
Spring break tied to Easter

Winter break will always be tied to Xmas in a country where a huge huge majority celebrates Xmas. Pretending anything else is ridiculous.
FCPS was perfectly willing to divorce spring break from Easter - but unless the other districts shift and follow us we have a real operational problem with staffing.
They need flexibility on two weeks for Xmas. Sometimes it makes sense and some times not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Seriously. I honestly believe FCPS reads this board and did 3 years because
That is what people here wanted.

Could a new SB (unanimously or majority) vote to over rule the next two years' calendar?

Politicians and public figures "un-do" things all the time from prior administration.
I don't see why this is wouldn't be an exception.

Seems like there's always a chance things can change and that nothing is ever written I'm stone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The approved 2025-26 calendar is a mess. Very limited number of five day weeks and the kids are not done until late June.

In 2025-26:

Start date is August 18

End date is June 17



Wow.

Glad my one kid will bea college freshman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Seriously. I honestly believe FCPS reads this board and did 3 years because
That is what people here wanted.

Could a new SB (unanimously or majority) vote to over rule the next two years' calendar?

Politicians and public figures "un-do" things all the time from prior administration.
I don't see why this is wouldn't be an exception.

Seems like there's always a chance things can change and that nothing is ever written I'm stone

I don’t think it would be politically popular but I suppose it is possible