School Calendar 2023-2024

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.


This!! 1000% agree. It is getting out of hand.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
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


If they re-did it and got rid of the absurd religious holidays, it would be very popular. I hope potential future SB members are reading this.
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.


This!! 1000% agree. It is getting out of hand.


Dear school board,
There is no pleasing these people. They are probably the same ones who asked for a three year calendar to plan vacations. They are youngkin trolls looking for ANY angle (including the calendar) too trumpet about voting out the school board. There are more sane people and parents in the county that outnumber these fools. Please don't listen.

Thanks,

Most People
Anonymous
No. There are plenty of never-Youngkin people who think most kids should go to school on Eid, Diwali, Yom Kippur, etc, etc, and that those who need a day off for PERSONAL reasons should be given leniency in their schedule.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
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.


This!! 1000% agree. It is getting out of hand.


Dear school board,
There is no pleasing these people. They are probably the same ones who asked for a three year calendar to plan vacations. They are youngkin trolls looking for ANY angle (including the calendar) too trumpet about voting out the school board. There are more sane people and parents in the county that outnumber these fools. Please don't listen.

Thanks,

Most People


It’s a bit shocking that people are so passionately against 4-5 days. It’s less than 3% of the school year.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:No. There are plenty of never-Youngkin people who think most kids should go to school on Eid, Diwali, Yom Kippur, etc, etc, and that those who need a day off for PERSONAL reasons should be given leniency in their schedule.



People are extremely impulsive short-sighted if they think having to deal with their kids for those 5 days is worth voting in republicans for charters and vouchers and Christian nationalism in FCPS.

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
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.


This!! 1000% agree. It is getting out of hand.


Dear school board,
There is no pleasing these people. They are probably the same ones who asked for a three year calendar to plan vacations. They are youngkin trolls looking for ANY angle (including the calendar) too trumpet about voting out the school board. There are more sane people and parents in the county that outnumber these fools. Please don't listen.

Thanks,

Most People


If you informed as opposed to bloviating - you would know it was Reid who had the idea for 3 years.
Anonymous
I LOVE having a 3 yr calendar. I don’t care if it is bad or not. It is ridiculous that they wait 4 months until the end of school to decide on a calendar. I’m just thankful it is done for 3 yrs. Enough is enough! There will always be some ground unhappy- make a decision and stick to it!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
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.


+1

I will never waste my time on another FCPS survey.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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.


+1

I will never waste my time on another FCPS survey.


But the survey was used. Several of the Board members wanted shorter winter breaks but they backed down because the survey was overwhelming.

The changes the Dr. Reid made on the final day were minor. One was to switch a TW by a week to align with a quarter end and the other was to align the end of the third Q with Spring Break. Otherwise it was the exact same blue calendar. And those changes were good ones.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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.


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.


I did have some typos there. But I meant be glad you don’t have to lesson plan for a sub if the religious holiday is a teacher workday. I’m a Jewish former teacher and my husband is a Jewish current teacher.


I'm totally fine with religious holidays being teacher work days. I'm not fine with making them full holidays for all and then expecting teachers to work (uncompensated) if they aren't whatever religion is that day.


Oh yeah that was a weird suggestion.


No one was saying you'd be "uncompensated" for your work. We were just saying that since they placed the PW days at the end of the year, and the teachers said they don't need them at the end of the year b/c there is nothing to do, from a practical standpoint, the efficient and fair answer is that the teacher uses the days when s/he doesn't have to be with kids in the classroom (i.e. religious holidays) to get the necessary tasks done, and then s/he would get "paid" the comp time at the end of the year for the PW days. We were assuming that the teacher wouldn't actually work on the PW days at the end of the year b/c s/he ALREADY put in the work time when it was needed DURING the year (on the religious holidays). No one is being asked (under this scenario) to work for free.


That only works if the principals approve working from an alternate location. Mine doesn't. We have to be in the building or use vacation, except that very first day of the contract in August that is mandated as work from an alternate location. So if the calendar stands, I will be working on religious days to keep my head afloat (fine) and in the building those last days to show my face and stare at a wall to avoid using leave (not fine) or using leave (definitely not fine, I don't have any left after having a kid so it would be leave without pay). We cannot turn in keys until the last day of the contract unless we use leave either.

They either need to mandate principals allow "work ("work") from an alternate location and check out early if ready", or they are making it worse for staff.
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: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.


I did have some typos there. But I meant be glad you don’t have to lesson plan for a sub if the religious holiday is a teacher workday. I’m a Jewish former teacher and my husband is a Jewish current teacher.


I'm totally fine with religious holidays being teacher work days. I'm not fine with making them full holidays for all and then expecting teachers to work (uncompensated) if they aren't whatever religion is that day.


Oh yeah that was a weird suggestion.


No one was saying you'd be "uncompensated" for your work. We were just saying that since they placed the PW days at the end of the year, and the teachers said they don't need them at the end of the year b/c there is nothing to do, from a practical standpoint, the efficient and fair answer is that the teacher uses the days when s/he doesn't have to be with kids in the classroom (i.e. religious holidays) to get the necessary tasks done, and then s/he would get "paid" the comp time at the end of the year for the PW days. We were assuming that the teacher wouldn't actually work on the PW days at the end of the year b/c s/he ALREADY put in the work time when it was needed DURING the year (on the religious holidays). No one is being asked (under this scenario) to work for free.


That only works if the principals approve working from an alternate location. Mine doesn't. We have to be in the building or use vacation, except that very first day of the contract in August that is mandated as work from an alternate location. So if the calendar stands, I will be working on religious days to keep my head afloat (fine) and in the building those last days to show my face and stare at a wall to avoid using leave (not fine) or using leave (definitely not fine, I don't have any left after having a kid so it would be leave without pay). We cannot turn in keys until the last day of the contract unless we use leave either.

They either need to mandate principals allow "work ("work") from an alternate location and check out early if ready", or they are making it worse for staff.


That day in August was removed.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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


If they re-did it and got rid of the absurd religious holidays, it would be very popular. I hope potential future SB members are reading this.


The SB isn't supposed to have political affiliation and it's a shame it's morphed into that though.

If a SB candidate ran on the ticket to repeal the calendar i think the person woukd becquite successful
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
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.


+1

I will never waste my time on another FCPS survey.


The SB royally messed up with keeping the schools shut for way longer than neccessary (and the rest of the country)....that was the catalyst.
Do people not remember that? How furious people were?

The CRT, TJ debacle, award recognition, and the list goes on....now the calendar.


Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
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.


This!! 1000% agree. It is getting out of hand.


Dear school board,
There is no pleasing these people. They are probably the same ones who asked for a three year calendar to plan vacations. They are youngkin trolls looking for ANY angle (including the calendar) too trumpet about voting out the school board. There are more sane people and parents in the county that outnumber these fools. Please don't listen.

Thanks,

Most People


Huh? I’m a lifelong Dem. Never voted R in my life. I am voting for any R to replace this school board, though. Will be a first for me.
And I am far from alone. Most of my D friends hate the religion days off. I think the out of touch folks are you all who support endless four day weeks
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