APS Calendar - decision timeframe

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I asked for an earlier spring break and a shorter winter break. I also really hate the idea of school starting on a Thursday. I wish school started two weeks before labor day, but I didn't even bother asking for that.

I also thanked them for maintaining the fall religious holidays. I know they are a pain for those who don't celebrate -- but I really appreciate it as someone who almost moved to MoCo just so my kids wouldn't be one of the only ones pulled out of school for the jewish holidays.

I’m Muslim and we celebrate Eid. Honestly I’d rather we have a policy like Fairfax County where there are no exams on the various religious holidays and kids can take off. Having a day off for every religious holiday just leads to too many random days off. Also what about other religions? Such as orthodox Christians? What about their holidays. I would rather we end early and start after Labor Day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The longer winter break is to match Fairfax and the teachers like it.

The schedule is about the teachers not parents. Don’t know why they bother to survey.

No it isn’t. If it were about the teachers then why is Arlington’s spring break different than Fairfax’?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I submitted comments to dump all the religious holidays (including separating spring break from Easter) and just allow religious observances. But, yeah, not going to happen.

Easy for you to say when you already know you’ll have no school for Christmas and Easter.

I’m agnostic so don’t care about any of it. But winter break will never change because too many companies work around it as well. I’d be fine with a shorter winter break too.

I’m not saying get rid of winter break - I’m saying keep the fall holidays.

Right. But the implication was that I was okay getting rid of the fall religious holidays because I have my Christian holidays. And I'm saying I don't think we should have any of them, Christian ones included (i.e. separate spring break from Easter). Let people have religious holidays off as needed without any penalty (no tests etc). FCPS ultimately went this way.

Either way, I agree the surrounding counties should all try to align better, and specifically spring break.

But as you admit, we will never get rid of winter break - so Christmas is covered no matter what happens. The only ones negatively impacted by getting rid of fall holidays are the ones that celebrate the fall holidays.

Then are you advocating to add other religious holidays that aren't currently included in the calendar? Schools cannot possibly be inclusive of everyone. So just make religious holidays a time that people who celebrate it can take off. That way nobody is excluded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I asked for an earlier spring break and a shorter winter break. I also really hate the idea of school starting on a Thursday. I wish school started two weeks before labor day, but I didn't even bother asking for that.

I also thanked them for maintaining the fall religious holidays. I know they are a pain for those who don't celebrate -- but I really appreciate it as someone who almost moved to MoCo just so my kids wouldn't be one of the only ones pulled out of school for the jewish holidays.

I’m Muslim and we celebrate Eid. Honestly I’d rather we have a policy like Fairfax County where there are no exams on the various religious holidays and kids can take off. Having a day off for every religious holiday just leads to too many random days off. Also what about other religions? Such as orthodox Christians? What about their holidays. I would rather we end early and start after Labor Day.

what is the attraction of starting after labor day? It seems like it creates a disadvantage for kids taking AP classes, who then have fewer weeks of classes before their AP exams. That would be fine if there were other educational advantages to starting later, but I don't really know what they are. Am I missing something.

[Anonymous]

Vacation is much cheaper after Labor Day

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I asked for an earlier spring break and a shorter winter break. I also really hate the idea of school starting on a Thursday. I wish school started two weeks before labor day, but I didn't even bother asking for that.

I also thanked them for maintaining the fall religious holidays. I know they are a pain for those who don't celebrate -- but I really appreciate it as someone who almost moved to MoCo just so my kids wouldn't be one of the only ones pulled out of school for the jewish holidays.

I’m Muslim and we celebrate Eid. Honestly I’d rather we have a policy like Fairfax County where there are no exams on the various religious holidays and kids can take off. Having a day off for every religious holiday just leads to too many random days off. Also what about other religions? Such as orthodox Christians? What about their holidays. I would rather we end early and start after Labor Day.

what is the attraction of starting after labor day? It seems like it creates a disadvantage for kids taking AP classes, who then have fewer weeks of classes before their AP exams. That would be fine if there were other educational advantages to starting later, but I don't really know what they are. Am I missing something.

Cheap vacations the week before labor day. For example, the house we get in Duck the week before labor day is 1200. We looked into getting it for the week of Aug 13 and it was almost 4K. I mean it is a selfish reason to be sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The illusion of choice. The two “options” aren’t very different. There is no option to start after Labor Day, or shorten winter break, or consolidate random mid-week days off to make long weekends/a fall break.

There’s a five day weekend on both calendars in late October. Although initial calendars for 21-22 also had this 5 day week, which morphed into a 4 day weekend with a half day at the start.

Ah, I must have missed that. It’s PT conferences plus Diwali, right?
But what 5 or 4 day weekend are you referring to this October? There isn’t one in APS.

[Anonymous]

Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

That's how it always was at my school growing up. It was fine. If people choose to blow off school to go skiing that's their business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

OK, then have school until the 21st or 22nd and then, close for break. Why the whole week? I mean I would love to work until the 16th of December and then peace out for the rest of the year, but that's not happening. There is zero reason for there not to be 2-3 days of school the week leading up to Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

When my middle schooler was in K, Christmas break began on Dec 24 (in APS). Yes, a lot of people skipped the last day I’m sure (us included).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

When my middle schooler was in K, Christmas break began on Dec 24 (in APS). Yes, a lot of people skipped the last day I’m sure (us included).

+1

Next year is the perfect year to have 1 one-week winter break. It's not as easy to do that when Xmas falls on, say, a Wednesday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

That's how it always was at my school growing up. It was fine. If people choose to blow off school to go skiing that's their business.

Same. As a kid (in another part of VA), we typically got out for winter break on the 22nd or 23rd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of you who want one week for winter break -- the only way to manage that in 2022 would be for the last day of school before the break to be on December 23 (at least one person has suggested something earlier, but get serious -- you need an entire week, Mon-F, for this one). Do you really think families are going to stick around through the 23rd? I don't.

That's how it always was at my school growing up. It was fine. If people choose to blow off school to go skiing that's their business.

Same. As a kid (in another part of VA), we typically got out for winter break on the 22nd or 23rd.

Well if things defaulted to “when I was a kid” the kids would get out of school earlier each summer if there were no snow days. There are 10+ some snow days in the calendar now. We would freak. So good thing things change! Why would when you were a kid be a standard for now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The illusion of choice. The two “options” aren’t very different. There is no option to start after Labor Day, or shorten winter break, or consolidate random mid-week days off to make long weekends/a fall break.

There’s a five day weekend on both calendars in late October. Although initial calendars for 21-22 also had this 5 day week, which morphed into a 4 day weekend with a half day at the start.

Ah, I must have missed that. It’s PT conferences plus Diwali, right?
But what 5 or 4 day weekend are you referring to this October? There isn’t one in APS.

On an initial schedule, this upcoming weekend Oct 21-22 was off for conferences. On the final schedule, the 21st became an early release day instead of a full day off, but the 22nd remained off. There’s a thread here somewhere about it. Same thing happened with the March conference dates - it was going to be two full days off but is now one early release day and one full day.