CALENDAR: O days and new material

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I just looked at our schools high school schedule. I only see 11 O days during the actual school year and they are evenly spaced between odd and even days - 6 on one block schedule and 5 on the other block schedule. In fact, they switch pretty evenly so that several even days are not together for O days. Don’t get me wrong, I think this whole thing is stupid - especially with a kid in several AP classes - but I don’t see the disparity with even and odd days (or what we call Red and Silver days). Maybe our school divided the days up differently. 🤷‍♀️

Your school may be set up differently. My kid was TJ 2020 and Mondays were “anchor days”— all 7classes. They have an either period and didn’t need a free block.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whose kids are already running into problems with teachers giving tests or introducing new material on O days? Rosh Hashanah is next week, marked as a religious observance (O) day.

How can you be running into problems already? We haven't had on O day yet. The first one is next Tuesday.

[Anonymous]

September: 1 even (9/7), 1 odd (9/16)
October: none
November: 1 odd (11/4)
December: 1 even (12/8)
January: 2 odd (1/6 and 1/19), 1 even (1/7)
February: 1 even (2/1)
March: None
April: 1 odd (4/15) 1 even (4/22)
May: 1 odd (5/3)

Agreed, 11 days, 6 of one, 5 of the other. Still stupid. Still a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I just looked at our schools high school schedule. I only see 11 O days during the actual school year and they are evenly spaced between odd and even days - 6 on one block schedule and 5 on the other block schedule. In fact, they switch pretty evenly so that several even days are not together for O days. Don’t get me wrong, I think this whole thing is stupid - especially with a kid in several AP classes - but I don’t see the disparity with even and odd days (or what we call Red and Silver days). Maybe our school divided the days up differently. 🤷‍♀️

Because it's not about disparity in terms of seeing one class more than the other over the course of the entire year. It's about the disruption to the teaching schedule over the course of the unit or quarter. The way our calendar is set right now, for example, our current unit (which is supposed to take two weeks total) is going to take us five weeks. Because of the labor day holiday, the two religious days, and mandatory BOY testing, everything is a mess. I have kids I'm seeing today (9/1) that I will not be able to instruct again until 9/13. That's insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The list of what you "can" do makes it sound like those "catch up days" from last year. How long until the kids realize those are stupid days and just don't come to school?

I have a high school kid. They already know. Mine is scheduling college visits on O Days. I’ll let her miss in the fall to do visits and finish apps. If she wants to senior skip day in the spring she can.

That's what FCPS wants basically. They want to make the days useless to generate high absence rates this year so that next year they have a secular justification for giving off whatever days they want to.

Yup. As a teacher, I 100% understand what they were trying to do in creating the rules, and I think that we should get the Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur/Ramadan/Eid off, but some of the holidays that are O days affect very few of the 180,000 students and really hamper teachers ability to get through the curriculum. Dia de Los Muertos? Bodhi Day? Lunar New Year? Maybe I'm super misinformed, but I've literally never had a student take off for those.

At least half of the East Asian students around here celebrate Lunar New Year. I bet you we have more students who celebrate Lunar New Year than Yom Kippur in the school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whose kids are already running into problems with teachers giving tests or introducing new material on O days? Rosh Hashanah is next week, marked as a religious observance (O) day.

How can you be running into problems already? We haven't had on O day yet. The first one is next Tuesday.

I'm a member of the Church of Satan and my child is not given observance days for our holidays. We would like to make up work on Rosh Hashanah but now we are worried DC will fall behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whose kids are already running into problems with teachers giving tests or introducing new material on O days? Rosh Hashanah is next week, marked as a religious observance (O) day.

How can you be running into problems already? We haven't had on O day yet. The first one is next Tuesday.

I'm a member of the Church of Satan and my child is not given observance days for our holidays. We would like to make up work on Rosh Hashanah but now we are worried DC will fall behind.

Then you are in luck. Most teachers will treat the O days as a time for makeup work. Win-win!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whose kids are already running into problems with teachers giving tests or introducing new material on O days? Rosh Hashanah is next week, marked as a religious observance (O) day.

How can you be running into problems already? We haven't had on O day yet. The first one is next Tuesday.

Right, the first one is next Tuesday, which means kids are already planning to be absent, looking ahead at the syllabus, and and talking to their teachers about what they'll miss. When your kids have a planned absence, they don't let their teachers know in advance?

[Anonymous]

Seems like it would have been easier to just have the four originally proposed days off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like it would have been easier to just have the four originally proposed days off.

Easier yes. Legal. No.

Then again, this is very much not legal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whose kids are already running into problems with teachers giving tests or introducing new material on O days? Rosh Hashanah is next week, marked as a religious observance (O) day.

How can you be running into problems already? We haven't had on O day yet. The first one is next Tuesday.

Right, the first one is next Tuesday, which means kids are already planning to be absent, looking ahead at the syllabus, and and talking to their teachers about what they'll miss. When your kids have a planned absence, they don't let their teachers know in advance?

Many times they do, but I still cannot assume they will. I have to plan as though at least 1 student will be absent for the day. If I have perfect attendance in block 1, but a student out in block 3, I can't give the advantage to block 1.

[Anonymous]

“ Then again, this is very much not legal.”

I wonder if that is a route to helping fix this mess. VA requires X number of days of school - if it is 100% clear FCPS is just warehousing the kids that fat by banning tests, new content and review how are they counting these as legitimate school days ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like it would have been easier to just have the four originally proposed days off.

Easier yes. Legal. No.

Then again, this is very much not legal.

If it is not legal why do Arlington, Loudoun and PWCS have these days off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ Then again, this is very much not legal.”

I wonder if that is a route to helping fix this mess. VA requires X number of days of school - if it is 100% clear FCPS is just warehousing the kids that fat by banning tests, new content and review how are they counting these as legitimate school days ?

The kids are in school aren’t they? Otherwise, we couldn’t count field day, class parties, snow days, etc. Kids don’t really learn things on those days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like it would have been easier to just have the four originally proposed days off.

Easier yes. Legal. No.

Then again, this is very much not legal.

If it is not legal why do Arlington, Loudoun and PWCS have these days off?

They were following Fairfax and thought Fairfax had talked to their lawyer. Clown car of incompetence.