FCPS Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Edison, Hayfield, Lewis, Mount Vernon, South County, West Potomac, Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, and Woodson.

September 16
October 21
November 18
February 10
March 10
April 21
May 12
Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Herndon, Langley, Madison, Marshall, McLean, South Lakes, Centreville, Chantilly, Fairfax, Oakton, Robinson, and Westfield.

September 23
October 28
November 25
February 24
March 17
April 28
May 19

If you look at the calendar and surrounding holidays, some of these dates are a complete joke. Like the whole week is a waste several times for our assigned dates.

So in November my child will go to school for 13.5 days total. What a GD joke. I am fine with staff planning days if you take away religious observance days. We should get federal holidays only. FFX kids are learning nothing, their calendars are ridiculously stupid and keep getting worse. With the mount of money and intelligent people we have, how in the F can they not figure this out. Can’t some of this crap teachers are required to do be done during the summer? Make teaching a year-round profession already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm emailing Dr. Reid and I encourage everyone else who has an issue with this to do the same.

This whole idea/plan was weighed against other ideas. They already know parents are going to be happy. Of course, they predicted that. But they also had to weigh it against extending the school year, further into June, which they also knew wouldn’t make parents happy.

Loudoun managed to change course when parents expressed their views. Why is Fairfax unable to do the same?

November already only had one 5 day week. Take Mon-Weds of Thanksgiving week and there’s your hours. Let parents vote or weigh in before saying “they’ll adjust” as one board member did.

When they don’t ask her opinion, it’s because they don’t want it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Edison, Hayfield, Lewis, Mount Vernon, South County, West Potomac, Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, and Woodson.

September 16
October 21
November 18
February 10
March 10
April 21
May 12
Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Herndon, Langley, Madison, Marshall, McLean, South Lakes, Centreville, Chantilly, Fairfax, Oakton, Robinson, and Westfield.

September 23
October 28
November 25
February 24
March 17
April 28
May 19

If you look at the calendar and surrounding holidays, some of these dates are a complete joke. Like the whole week is a waste several times for our assigned dates.

So in November my child will go to school for 13.5 days total. What a GD joke. I am fine with staff planning days if you take away religious observance days. We should get federal holidays only. FFX kids are learning nothing, their calendars are ridiculously stupid and keep getting worse. With the mount of money and intelligent people we have, how in the F can they not figure this out. Can’t some of this crap teachers are required to do be done during the summer? Make teaching a year-round profession already.

If FCPS decided to go year-round when the rest of the state/area wasn’t doing it, they would lose the majority of their teachers to every surrounding county. It’s not a viable option unless the majority of the counties do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Edison, Hayfield, Lewis, Mount Vernon, South County, West Potomac, Annandale, Falls Church, Justice, Lake Braddock, West Springfield, and Woodson.

September 16
October 21
November 18
February 10
March 10
April 21
May 12
Early release Mondays for elementary schools in the the following pyramids are planned for the dates below: Herndon, Langley, Madison, Marshall, McLean, South Lakes, Centreville, Chantilly, Fairfax, Oakton, Robinson, and Westfield.

September 23
October 28
November 25
February 24
March 17
April 28
May 19

If you look at the calendar and surrounding holidays, some of these dates are a complete joke. Like the whole week is a waste several times for our assigned dates.

So in November my child will go to school for 13.5 days total. What a GD joke. I am fine with staff planning days if you take away religious observance days. We should get federal holidays only. FFX kids are learning nothing, their calendars are ridiculously stupid and keep getting worse. With the mount of money and intelligent people we have, how in the F can they not figure this out. Can’t some of this crap teachers are required to do be done during the summer? Make teaching a year-round profession already.

I briefly threw the numbers together and estimated that would cost them about $8 million for the four day training. That excludes high school, middle school, specialists, etc. Again, just rough numbers.

Since they can’t force work/training outside of contract dates, that would be an obstacle.

[Anonymous]

I think doing the training Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week is a great solution. MKe those days k-12 teacher workdays/training days, no need to close early on Mondags.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I saw some people up thread are being told Scouts will offer programs. I'd like to see what that is.

Because:

Girl Scout Leaders are volunteers and most are working moms or SAHMs with other small children who would need child care. I love Girl SCouts and I'm a leader but I can't do afternoons.

I love Girl Scouts but like plenty of people wouldn’t trust BSA with my kids. This isn’t the kind of problem that volunteer-run organizations can be expected to solve since those volunteers are the same people scrambling for care for their kids next year.

I'm on the PPs, this will be on a school-to-school basis. Not every school will have the same activities based on staff, volunteers, etc. There may be some schools where one of the scout leaders is a SAHM.

So, like everything else in FCPS, the schools with well resourced PTAs with scores of SAHMs will give the kids a great experience and the poorer schools will pile the kids into the gym with a sub?

I’m not so sure about that. If you are a SAHM, you are not going to want to go run a 3-hour Girl Scout meeting on those Mondays, or facilitate some amazingly enriching PTA program.
—-PTA mom who gives tons of hours to my kids’ school but will prioritize my own children on those early release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think doing the training Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week is a great solution. MKe those days k-12 teacher workdays/training days, no need to close early on Mondags.

Those 3 days still aren’t enough to complete the entire training, and they’ll run into issues with staff that already has travel plans for that Wednesday, since it’s currently a holiday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t most of you ‘work from home’ anyways? I don’t see how it’s so hard for you to pickup your kid early for 7 days in the entire school year!

You do know that even at the height of the pandemic only 30% of this area worked from home, right? And that was high for the United States as a whole. How privileged are you not to think of everyone who can't?

It's also true that 30% of people have access to a hybrid model - meaning that they could (possibly) work from home on those 7 days.

Here? Anyone working in a classified environment works in person full-time. Any doctor or nurse or medical field works in person full-time. Any restaurant or grocery works in person full time. Teachers work in person full-time. Heck, even the corporate lawyers I know in DC are in the office a minimum of 3 to 4 days a week.

I’m really sorry you are going through this and remember the stress of needing to find care. I’m in one of those fields and went to work in person during the pandemic. My youngest is just past elementary so this doesn’t affect us but I feel for the parents.

BUT with all of my kids after all of these years, we only know 2 other families where both parents work in person and don’t have work from home options. This was before Covid too. This area is full of people working from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t most of you ‘work from home’ anyways? I don’t see how it’s so hard for you to pickup your kid early for 7 days in the entire school year!

You do know that even at the height of the pandemic only 30% of this area worked from home, right? And that was high for the United States as a whole. How privileged are you not to think of everyone who can't?

It's also true that 30% of people have access to a hybrid model - meaning that they could (possibly) work from home on those 7 days.

Here? Anyone working in a classified environment works in person full-time. Any doctor or nurse or medical field works in person full-time. Any restaurant or grocery works in person full time. Teachers work in person full-time. Heck, even the corporate lawyers I know in DC are in the office a minimum of 3 to 4 days a week.

I’m really sorry you are going through this and remember the stress of needing to find care. I’m in one of those fields and went to work in person during the pandemic. My youngest is just past elementary so this doesn’t affect us but I feel for the parents.

BUT with all of my kids after all of these years, we only know 2 other families where both parents work in person and don’t have work from home options. This was before Covid too. This area is full of people working from home.

This is uncommon in the lower income neighborhoods. I have families that only have one car and the other parent walks/ is bus dependent. Majority of my families work blue collar or service work. This schedule doesn’t work for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t most of you ‘work from home’ anyways? I don’t see how it’s so hard for you to pickup your kid early for 7 days in the entire school year!

You do know that even at the height of the pandemic only 30% of this area worked from home, right? And that was high for the United States as a whole. How privileged are you not to think of everyone who can't?

It's also true that 30% of people have access to a hybrid model - meaning that they could (possibly) work from home on those 7 days.

Here? Anyone working in a classified environment works in person full-time. Any doctor or nurse or medical field works in person full-time. Any restaurant or grocery works in person full time. Teachers work in person full-time. Heck, even the corporate lawyers I know in DC are in the office a minimum of 3 to 4 days a week.

I’m really sorry you are going through this and remember the stress of needing to find care. I’m in one of those fields and went to work in person during the pandemic. My youngest is just past elementary so this doesn’t affect us but I feel for the parents.

BUT with all of my kids after all of these years, we only know 2 other families where both parents work in person and don’t have work from home options. This was before Covid too. This area is full of people working from home.

This is uncommon in the lower income neighborhoods. I have families that only have one car and the other parent walks/ is bus dependent. Majority of my families work blue collar or service work. This schedule doesn’t work for them.

What plan would have worked for them? In all honestly, for the families you a referring to, no plan probably would have worked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think doing the training Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week is a great solution. MKe those days k-12 teacher workdays/training days, no need to close early on Mondags.

Those 3 days still aren’t enough to complete the entire training, and they’ll run into issues with staff that already has travel plans for that Wednesday, since it’s currently a holiday.

Clearly, changing the expected instructional schedule is not an issue with FCPS so this should be no biggie. If its ok to close early unexpectedly a whole bunch of days, switching a day off to a work day months from now shouldn't be an issue.

[Anonymous]

I don't really understand, they are supposed to be implementing the curriculum this school year. Shouldn't the training for what they are teaching happen BEFORE the school year starts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't really understand, they are supposed to be implementing the curriculum this school year. Shouldn't the training for what they are teaching happen BEFORE the school year starts?

It’s a year-long implementation. There are milestones and steps along the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t most of you ‘work from home’ anyways? I don’t see how it’s so hard for you to pickup your kid early for 7 days in the entire school year!

You do know that even at the height of the pandemic only 30% of this area worked from home, right? And that was high for the United States as a whole. How privileged are you not to think of everyone who can't?

It's also true that 30% of people have access to a hybrid model - meaning that they could (possibly) work from home on those 7 days.

Here? Anyone working in a classified environment works in person full-time. Any doctor or nurse or medical field works in person full-time. Any restaurant or grocery works in person full time. Teachers work in person full-time. Heck, even the corporate lawyers I know in DC are in the office a minimum of 3 to 4 days a week.

Most work from home employees or hybrid jobs have specific policies that children must be in child care or supervised by another adult. You cannot do both.

How would they ever know if the person wasn’t on a call and the kid was coloring or watching a movie in the next room? Work from home parents are the primary caregivers when their kid is sick. Unless they tell on themselves, there is almost no way their job will find out.
(Work from home parent)

[Anonymous]

There are many problems with FCPS, some bigger than others. At one time they started after Labor Day and they had longer breaks. That had to change because working parents had to find child care for 5 days, so they changed it to multiple 3 day weekends and start the school year earlier. The same parents had issue with that too. To the people who are upset because their kids aren’t learning anything, the reason is because you all treated as childcare and not education. There is absolutely no reason why they need to do SOL testing in May when the school is open through mid June. That’s why your kids don’t learn anything at the end of the school year!

Another issue, the FCPS is too big! Each Pyramid should be its own school district, that way they can cater to the specific needs of the community and not to the entire county.

Another huge problem is that they implement new curriculum without ever thinking it through. And then switch it again before they give it a good chance to actually work.

Teachers don’t need workdays in order to get things done, they don’t need to have special days for continuing education. That can all be done on their own time during the summer or on the weekend. There is absolutely no way the county could afford to pay teachers for year-roundwork. Whoever even suggested that is a joke!