No School November

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is home, again, for a random day, interrupting their school week and disrupting my work week. This time it’s to allow voting in schools, despite the myriad of community and government centers spread over this County and despite the option to keep schools open— for example, have kids just in their classrooms (as they did in yonder years).

More than all the big picture forces shaping elections, the fact of my child sitting at home and never being in school for solid weeks of learning — because of issues which are led by Democrats (recognizing all religions, recognizing all holidays, maximizing everyone’s ability to have a voting site close as possible) impacts my life on a daily basis the most. Someone out there in Democratic leadership please listen and restore sanity.

What in the name of all sane things does the Democratic party have to do with your kids school days. They have had that calendar for decades.

The Democratic Party endorses APS school board members. No non Democratic endorsed candidate has been elected in how long? Decades? Regardless the party takes a position on the school system and the school system is engaged in nonstop performative progressive acts — fighting the gender/sex bathroom fight! Feeding at risk families! Recognizing all religions via closing schools! Opening schools so everyone can vote at the nearest location! What do you mean what does the Democratic Party have to do with my school days? In Arlington, a lot.

It does feel performative and completely over the top on many issues.

They are forgetting that only a few years ago we didn’t have all these religious holidays in the calendar… and now any discussion, like “it’s not working very well” is met with scandalous blanket rejection and accusations . So we were not inclusive in 2021?

Correct, APS is doing better now. Why go backwards?

It’s not “better” if you ask the Eastern Orthodox, of which we actually have a sizable population here, and for whom there are zero religious holidays.

Any time you’re picking winners, you’re picking losers.

yeah i'm sure you're sooo concerned for the Eastern Orthodox

The stated purpose of the giving all children the day off is ostensibly for recognizing religious holidays. But, it isn’t tied to the religious population of our county. It thus comes across as more performative nodding to progressiveness rather than a substantive analysis of how, for example, absence were impacting our school calendar.

+1. This is exactly it. Has anyone actually studied how many observant Jews we have here versus observant Eastern Orthodox? Or Hindu for that matter?

It seems like we just followed Fairfax, but Arlington is in fact different. We have different settlement patterns here, and none of the impacts were studied. So it all reads super performative and fake. And unconstitutional, really.

Agreed. Though I don’t think we actually followed FFX, it’s just a performative nod to inclusivity and progressiveness. FFX bundled their professional days and other off days into chunks, they start a week earlier, and they get out earlier. Their calendar is actually more sensible now than ours. I also believe they have Chinese New Year off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When APS added the religious holidays, they should have removed other days off. But of course they don't want to make hard decisions or say no, so they just keep adding more days off. At the very least, they should get rid of veteran's day. The district I used to live in had school on veteran's day.

Can you be even more un-American? It's the veteran's in America that allow us to have the freedoms we all enjoy here. If anything, we should celebrate/thank them even more.

Look I’m not PP but the idea that any of the children in APS missing school on Veterans Day are celebrating/thanking veterans is asinine. A program at school on Veterans Day focused on the sacrifices our veterans have made on our behalf would be at least incrementally more likely to develop gratitude for the sacrifices required by our servicemembers and their families.

You can't be this obtuse. No one said the APS children would be out celebrating/thanking veterans. But that no different than President's Day, MLK Day, or any of the other multitude of Holidays these kids get. Veteran's Day is something worthwhile that should be celebrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When APS added the religious holidays, they should have removed other days off. But of course they don't want to make hard decisions or say no, so they just keep adding more days off. At the very least, they should get rid of veteran's day. The district I used to live in had school on veteran's day.

Can you be even more un-American? It's the veteran's in America that allow us to have the freedoms we all enjoy here. If anything, we should celebrate/thank them even more.

Look I’m not PP but the idea that any of the children in APS missing school on Veterans Day are celebrating/thanking veterans is asinine. A program at school on Veterans Day focused on the sacrifices our veterans have made on our behalf would be at least incrementally more likely to develop gratitude for the sacrifices required by our servicemembers and their families.

You can't be this obtuse. No one said the APS children would be out celebrating/thanking veterans. But that no different than President's Day, MLK Day, or any of the other multitude of Holidays these kids get. Veteran's Day is something worthwhile that should be celebrated.

Veterans Day should be celebrated. And in the same breath: no one said APS children would be celebrating veterans. I mean, what is exactly is the point of the day off from school in your view?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher here! I'm from NY originally and we never had a day off for grading. It is stupid (but I love it) that they give you one here. Completely unnecessary.

I am from another state that has teacher unions. They get grading days too.

I don't think it's stupid because grading is work and teachers complain a lot about uncompensated work.

And, one of my biggest peeves about modern school is that parents and students are supposed to review digital grade books where many assignments are not logged or graded in a reasonably timely fashion.

[Anonymous]

Since we're clearly not getting rid of all the random days off, and there is some benefit to it for secondary students, what I think we should do is drop the snow day allotment from 12 at elementary level/15 at secondary to 7/10. We just don't need that many. This would allow for all the holidays and to get out a week earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people need to complain so much? Just put your kid in a camp for the day.

when you have older kids you'll appreciate the days off

People say this often enough that I think it's time to consider separate calendars for Elementary and secondary schools

fine with me

signed,
parent with older kids

It’s fine with parents. Not easy, if not impossible, to implement in a large public school system though.

Another reason to go private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people need to complain so much? Just put your kid in a camp for the day.

when you have older kids you'll appreciate the days off

People say this often enough that I think it's time to consider separate calendars for Elementary and secondary schools

fine with me

signed,
parent with older kids

It’s fine with parents. Not easy, if not impossible, to implement in a large public school system though.

Another reason to go private.

Not sure why it's not possible. There are plenty of times where the primary and secondary schedules differ. Guessing you have younger kids so you're not yet aware of how secondary works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since we're clearly not getting rid of all the random days off, and there is some benefit to it for secondary students, what I think we should do is drop the snow day allotment from 12 at elementary level/15 at secondary to 7/10. We just don't need that many. This would allow for all the holidays and to get out a week earlier.

Have you been through a winter where a flake of snow falls? We get close to using the snow days. The children can't go to school if a flake is on the ground or might fall on the ground.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we're clearly not getting rid of all the random days off, and there is some benefit to it for secondary students, what I think we should do is drop the snow day allotment from 12 at elementary level/15 at secondary to 7/10. We just don't need that many. This would allow for all the holidays and to get out a week earlier.

Have you been through a winter where a flake of snow falls? We get close to using the snow days. The children can't go to school if a flake is on the ground or might fall on the ground.

Yes, kid is in MS. We have never used all the snow days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we're clearly not getting rid of all the random days off, and there is some benefit to it for secondary students, what I think we should do is drop the snow day allotment from 12 at elementary level/15 at secondary to 7/10. We just don't need that many. This would allow for all the holidays and to get out a week earlier.

Have you been through a winter where a flake of snow falls? We get close to using the snow days. The children can't go to school if a flake is on the ground or might fall on the ground.

Yes, kid is in MS. We have never used all the snow days.

My kid is in high school and I do recall years where we used them all.