School in June is a waste of time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell that to parents who work in our workaholic culture where camps start at $600/week per kid.

I would guess the true professional "workaholics" can easily afford $600/week camp. It's the people who have to work multiple lower wage jobs to get by who rely on school as free/inexpensive childcare.

OP here. Just to be clear I’m not advocating for less than 180 days of school. Just less random days off in the middle of the school year so we can get off earlier. I am a working parent and I don’t make much. I find it harder to find care for those random days off. I also don’t like how little 5 day weeks they have especially in the first semester. Also can someone explain early release Wednesdays as opposed to Fridays? Easier for me to take off work on a Friday afternoon as opposed to the middle of the week.

Probably because it's also easier for teachers to take off Friday afternoons instead of Wednesday afternoons.

Fairfax has far fewer half days than aps. Pretty sure APS has some of the most compared to other nova schools. TBH I would not care if teachers took off on half day Fridays. Pretty sure they are getting their work done.

I'm in LCPS and I don't think we've had even one half day this year. Those are a waste and I'm glad we don't have many. Just take the whole day off or send them to school the whole day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell that to parents who work in our workaholic culture where camps start at $600/week per kid.

I would guess the true professional "workaholics" can easily afford $600/week camp. It's the people who have to work multiple lower wage jobs to get by who rely on school as free/inexpensive childcare.

OP here. Just to be clear I’m not advocating for less than 180 days of school. Just less random days off in the middle of the school year so we can get off earlier. I am a working parent and I don’t make much. I find it harder to find care for those random days off. I also don’t like how little 5 day weeks they have especially in the first semester. Also can someone explain early release Wednesdays as opposed to Fridays? Easier for me to take off work on a Friday afternoon as opposed to the middle of the week.

Probably because it's also easier for teachers to take off Friday afternoons instead of Wednesday afternoons.

This was discussed during the 23-24 calendar process. I remember streaming the school board meeting. It sounded like the Superintendent and the SB members were open to moving them to Fridays, but haven't seen any other mention of it since then. I added it to my comments when I filled out the calendar policy survey recently.

Interesting to see this over time. We used to have early release Wednesday every Wednesday. It was gotten rid of and kids had a foreign language as a special instead so teachers got planning time. Then they got rid of FLES and added 10 minutes to the school day. I think keeping the early release as Wednesday is just a tradition at this point.

I know this is controversial, but it was great to have early release days every week because allowed me as a teacher to take care of personal things (DR appointments etc) without losing instructional time. It also allowed me to meet more with colleagues (across the county and within the school) AND as a Kindergarten teacher gave me time to change out materials and centers without stress. If anything could help stress levels of teachers, early release every week would be amazing. It was a reason I switched to APS. I understand this won’t happen because parents need child care or whatever reason they stopped early release anyway, but it was so helpful to have as a teacher. It made the job much more manageable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell that to parents who work in our workaholic culture where camps start at $600/week per kid.

I would guess the true professional "workaholics" can easily afford $600/week camp. It's the people who have to work multiple lower wage jobs to get by who rely on school as free/inexpensive childcare.

OP here. Just to be clear I’m not advocating for less than 180 days of school. Just less random days off in the middle of the school year so we can get off earlier. I am a working parent and I don’t make much. I find it harder to find care for those random days off. I also don’t like how little 5 day weeks they have especially in the first semester. Also can someone explain early release Wednesdays as opposed to Fridays? Easier for me to take off work on a Friday afternoon as opposed to the middle of the week.

Probably because it's also easier for teachers to take off Friday afternoons instead of Wednesday afternoons.

This was discussed during the 23-24 calendar process. I remember streaming the school board meeting. It sounded like the Superintendent and the SB members were open to moving them to Fridays, but haven't seen any other mention of it since then. I added it to my comments when I filled out the calendar policy survey recently.

Interesting to see this over time. We used to have early release Wednesday every Wednesday. It was gotten rid of and kids had a foreign language as a special instead so teachers got planning time. Then they got rid of FLES and added 10 minutes to the school day. I think keeping the early release as Wednesday is just a tradition at this point.

I know this is controversial, but it was great to have early release days every week because allowed me as a teacher to take care of personal things (DR appointments etc) without losing instructional time. It also allowed me to meet more with colleagues (across the county and within the school) AND as a Kindergarten teacher gave me time to change out materials and centers without stress. If anything could help stress levels of teachers, early release every week would be amazing. It was a reason I switched to APS. I understand this won’t happen because parents need child care or whatever reason they stopped early release anyway, but it was so helpful to have as a teacher. It made the job much more manageable.

As a teacher, would it make a difference whether early release is friday or wednesday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell that to parents who work in our workaholic culture where camps start at $600/week per kid.

I would guess the true professional "workaholics" can easily afford $600/week camp. It's the people who have to work multiple lower wage jobs to get by who rely on school as free/inexpensive childcare.

OP here. Just to be clear I’m not advocating for less than 180 days of school. Just less random days off in the middle of the school year so we can get off earlier. I am a working parent and I don’t make much. I find it harder to find care for those random days off. I also don’t like how little 5 day weeks they have especially in the first semester. Also can someone explain early release Wednesdays as opposed to Fridays? Easier for me to take off work on a Friday afternoon as opposed to the middle of the week.

Probably because it's also easier for teachers to take off Friday afternoons instead of Wednesday afternoons.

Fairfax has far fewer half days than aps. Pretty sure APS has some of the most compared to other nova schools. TBH I would not care if teachers took off on half day Fridays. Pretty sure they are getting their work done.

I'm in LCPS and I don't think we've had even one half day this year. Those are a waste and I'm glad we don't have many. Just take the whole day off or send them to school the whole day.

APS teacher here. Half days are for required "professional development" training for teachers (most of which could be done at home or conveyed through email), or for parent-teacher conferences. It's not like teachers get to leave early on half days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS has wasted June ever since my senior was in Kindergarten. That's as far back as my knowledge goes. But I bet it's been longer than that even.

However, kid #2 is now in private HS where they are still teaching new content and writing papers. This kid will be spending the last week of school taking final exams.

Also, the *only* organized voice in Arlington that would advocate for meaningful reform on this is APE.

APE did, they pushed for more school days.

Keep up the good work, APE! 180+ days was the normal pre-pandemic. The new holidays is what’s extending us out past June even though we start earlier.

All this blame on the "new" holidays is just so classic APE. Who cares about equity for the brown people's holidays?! Not APE!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess just look at it as free camp? 2/3 less weeks you have to pay for?

My dream schedule would be year round with 3-4 week breaks between quarters.

I did this in Prince William county. 9 weeks of school, 3 weeks off, all year. I liked it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS has wasted June ever since my senior was in Kindergarten. That's as far back as my knowledge goes. But I bet it's been longer than that even.

However, kid #2 is now in private HS where they are still teaching new content and writing papers. This kid will be spending the last week of school taking final exams.

Also, the *only* organized voice in Arlington that would advocate for meaningful reform on this is APE.

APE did, they pushed for more school days.

Keep up the good work, APE! 180+ days was the normal pre-pandemic. The new holidays is what’s extending us out past June even though we start earlier.

All this blame on the "new" holidays is just so classic APE. Who cares about equity for the brown people's holidays?! Not APE!!!

Oh, please. Most of the new holidays are Jewish. Not brown people at all. Only Diwali and Eid are not, though equally unnecessary to add.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS has wasted June ever since my senior was in Kindergarten. That's as far back as my knowledge goes. But I bet it's been longer than that even.

However, kid #2 is now in private HS where they are still teaching new content and writing papers. This kid will be spending the last week of school taking final exams.

Also, the *only* organized voice in Arlington that would advocate for meaningful reform on this is APE.

APE did, they pushed for more school days.

Keep up the good work, APE! 180+ days was the normal pre-pandemic. The new holidays is what’s extending us out past June even though we start earlier.

All this blame on the "new" holidays is just so classic APE. Who cares about equity for the brown people's holidays?! Not APE!!!

If you want to talk about equity, please make sure to address the inequity of disjointed weeks on young learners and SWDs, the inequity of a two week winter break that means kids miss more than half a month of a school and tremendous effort spent to get back to classroom
Norms after such a long break.

Also don’t forget to address the inequity of families, especially si fle parents and low income, in finding childcare on all these random days odd and a two week winter break. Last year they county had something like 40 slots for school day camps. Other more expensive private camps had to be booked as soon as they opened. All of this requires families be able to drive or provide transportation to drop their kids off so the can go to work.

Also while we’re talking about equity and holidays, why are some religions and cultural celebrations being elevated over others? How is this equitable to the orthodox for example? What about Asians and lunar new year?

There are lots of way to address equity around the holidays in schools that don’t include giving everyone some days off and leads to more inequity than it solves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The group Arlington Parents for Education has pushed for more days in school. So you can thank them for the useless days in June.

That's ridiculous. The useless days in June pre-dated APE by decades. It's the "necessity" to "observe" as many religious holidays as possible in the name of inclusion that keeps those days in June despite starting earlier in August.

The year after next, APS wants to start 3 weeks earlier from when we used to just a few years ago, yet still the same end date. How is this possible??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS has wasted June ever since my senior was in Kindergarten. That's as far back as my knowledge goes. But I bet it's been longer than that even.

However, kid #2 is now in private HS where they are still teaching new content and writing papers. This kid will be spending the last week of school taking final exams.

Also, the *only* organized voice in Arlington that would advocate for meaningful reform on this is APE.

APE did, they pushed for more school days.

Keep up the good work, APE! 180+ days was the normal pre-pandemic. The new holidays is what’s extending us out past June even though we start earlier.

Agreed. Let’s lobby to have Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter as school days to try to get out earlier.

[Anonymous]

I think this is a way to give Central Office staff more leave. They accrue leave, but were recently granted Christmas and Spring Break as well. So… two weeks of Winter Break would really benefit the people putting that forward. Mind you, I know a teacher who is a single parent and did not apply for a Central Office job she was interested in three years back because of leave. Now, she’s kicking herself. The folks in those positions make a lot more than her, and get comparable leave at this point. Not right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed. Let’s lobby to have Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter as school days to try to get out earlier.

Easter is on a Sunday. Do you send your kids to school in Sunday?

Christmas is a federal holiday.

Bless your heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS has wasted June ever since my senior was in Kindergarten. That's as far back as my knowledge goes. But I bet it's been longer than that even.

However, kid #2 is now in private HS where they are still teaching new content and writing papers. This kid will be spending the last week of school taking final exams.

Also, the *only* organized voice in Arlington that would advocate for meaningful reform on this is APE.

APE did, they pushed for more school days.

Keep up the good work, APE! 180+ days was the normal pre-pandemic. The new holidays is what’s extending us out past June even though we start earlier.

All this blame on the "new" holidays is just so classic APE. Who cares about equity for the brown people's holidays?! Not APE!!!

Oh, please. Most of the new holidays are Jewish. Not brown people at all. Only Diwali and Eid are not, though equally unnecessary to add.

OP here. I have nothing to do with APE whatever that is. Also I’m Muslim and I celebrate Eid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:APS has wasted June ever since my senior was in Kindergarten. That's as far back as my knowledge goes. But I bet it's been longer than that even.

However, kid #2 is now in private HS where they are still teaching new content and writing papers. This kid will be spending the last week of school taking final exams.

Also, the *only* organized voice in Arlington that would advocate for meaningful reform on this is APE.

APE did, they pushed for more school days.

Keep up the good work, APE! 180+ days was the normal pre-pandemic. The new holidays is what’s extending us out past June even though we start earlier.

Agreed. Let’s lobby to have Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter as school days to try to get out earlier.

100% fine with fixing spring break so it’s at the same time every year and not tied to Easter. Get rid of Easter Monday after spring break too.

Christmas is a federal holiday. APS closed on all federal holidays. Definitely support making “winter break” shorter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Agreed. Let’s lobby to have Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter as school days to try to get out earlier.

Easter is on a Sunday. Do you send your kids to school in Sunday?

Christmas is a federal holiday.

Bless your heart.

+1. And even if it makes you mad, the vast majority of people in the US celebrate Christmas, so no one would come. If 75% of students & teachers celebrate a holiday & would miss school for it, by all means, make it a school holiday.