Why is school closed on Sept. 25th?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

I'm the outlier that loves all the random days off in FCPS. The long weekends give us a chance to see family, relax, whatever.

I completely disagreed with the previous O day policy where they couldn't teach any new material or give a test or take a field trip. That was more of an issue than the days off. But recognizing major religious holidays with a school closure is fine with me.

That's cool. Some parents work for a living.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every religion has at least 1 day off on the FCPS calendar. Remember: equity!

Yes, equity. How horrible it is to show respect to a diverse community & let them celebrate their holidays. /sarcasm

Why are some people so rattled by being inclusive and making folks feel a part of our community. It is really gross.

Why do some people want to force an entire school system to shut down for a religious holiday when the vast majority of students and teachers do not celebrate that holiday?

That sounds gross.

Gross? What is bad choice of words. Vomit in your hair is gross. Giving other families the time to celebrate their culture/religion is not gross.

They have time - they can take off any day they want. Why can't the rest of us go to school and have our kids learn?

Do you realize how much work it is to miss a day of school, either as a student or as a staff member? "Taking off any day you want" is not simple at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every religion has at least 1 day off on the FCPS calendar. Remember: equity!

Yes, equity. How horrible it is to show respect to a diverse community & let them celebrate their holidays. /sarcasm

Why does the public school system need to celebrate a religious holiday? I thought libs wanted religion out of schools.

In many school districts the closings are not to celebrate the religious holiday, but for the same operational reasons that Christmas is "celebrated". There are many teachers of Jewish or Muslim faiths and they need to take off to observe their religious holidays. And with the teacher and sub shortage in the country, school districts with a significant population of staff that will be taking off, will not be able to staff all schools when those teachers take off. So, would you rather that your children go to school and sit in a classroom unattended by a teacher? Or have an untrained teacher's aide babysitting your children for a day? Or be split up so that they are moved to overly large classes of like 35 where half the kids are sitting on the floor and no on is actually learning anything? Very few school districts have been able to replenish both their staff and the substitute pool post-pandemic. The new reality is that we just can't handle days when a significant portion of the bare bones minimal teaching staff take off.

LOL, there is no data supporting an operational reason for FCPS to be off for any Jewish or Muslim religious holiday.

+1
Such data does not exist. The absence data is slightly higher for these days but by very small percentages.

FCPS is not closed on them for operational issues.
Is IS Closed during the week before or after Easter - rather than some other week for spring break - for operational issues because they tried divorcing it last year and staff absolutely flipped out at not having the same breaks as their kids in other counties (who all had that Easter adjacent week off) so back we are - stuck with one of the priciest weeks to be on spring break. But for actual operational issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every religion has at least 1 day off on the FCPS calendar. Remember: equity!

Yes, equity. How horrible it is to show respect to a diverse community & let them celebrate their holidays. /sarcasm

Why does the public school system need to celebrate a religious holiday? I thought libs wanted religion out of schools.

Having the day off does not equal celebrating. We’re in the middle of a huge sub shortage and providing these as days off helps operationally. It’s also recognizing that our population is diverse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

So no Good Friday or Easter Monday?

I’m a DP, but no, we do not need those days off.

We do
We don’t get Easter Monday off, 2 years ago we didn’t get Good Friday off. I had a meltdown that year, and we allow to have so many holidays. I can’t even tell my family and friends out of state cause they will laugh at us if we tell then we get a day off because of a Jewish holidays. They believe we are a Christian nation.

They sound like idiots. I wouldn’t care what they think if I were you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't observe, it's a great day to tour colleges with your high schoolers.

don't have a high schooler, I have a 6th grader if they want to keep high schooler a holiday that is fine, we don't even have that many Jews at our schools.

You will someday. This has been known for months. Suck it up and zip it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

I'm the outlier that loves all the random days off in FCPS. The long weekends give us a chance to see family, relax, whatever.

I completely disagreed with the previous O day policy where they couldn't teach any new material or give a test or take a field trip. That was more of an issue than the days off. But recognizing major religious holidays with a school closure is fine with me.

That's cool. Some parents work for a living.

Good thing for you these holidays are known months in advance so you can plan for them.
-signed, working parents who have no family to babysit and know it's not that hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

I'm the outlier that loves all the random days off in FCPS. The long weekends give us a chance to see family, relax, whatever.

I completely disagreed with the previous O day policy where they couldn't teach any new material or give a test or take a field trip. That was more of an issue than the days off. But recognizing major religious holidays with a school closure is fine with me.

That's cool. Some parents work for a living.

Don't most working parents already have childcare? SACC and other school-aged childcare private programs all cover these days off. If you are talking about working parents that only work during the 7 hours that the kid is away at school, then, yes, those parents need to rely on babysitters, drop-in care, parent tag-teaming, etc as needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

So no Good Friday or Easter Monday?

Don't be a dick. I grew up with immigrant catholic families on both sides, in what amounted to a Catholic enclave. Went to Catholic School. Did all the Catholic things and then some.

Good Friday was off b/c the schools paired spring break with it, it wasn't a stand alone holiday. And, "Easter Monday" is not a thing for which there is a day off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

I'm the outlier that loves all the random days off in FCPS. The long weekends give us a chance to see family, relax, whatever.

I completely disagreed with the previous O day policy where they couldn't teach any new material or give a test or take a field trip. That was more of an issue than the days off. But recognizing major religious holidays with a school closure is fine with me.

That's cool. Some parents work for a living.

Boo hoo....most parents do. Your kids are your responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every religion has at least 1 day off on the FCPS calendar. Remember: equity!

Yes, equity. How horrible it is to show respect to a diverse community & let them celebrate their holidays. /sarcasm

Why does the public school system need to celebrate a religious holiday? I thought libs wanted religion out of schools.

I thought conservatives wanted their kids away from those "dreadful" teachers. Pick a lane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

So no Good Friday or Easter Monday?

Don't be a dick. I grew up with immigrant catholic families on both sides, in what amounted to a Catholic enclave. Went to Catholic School. Did all the Catholic things and then some.

Good Friday was off b/c the schools paired spring break with it, it wasn't a stand alone holiday. And, "Easter Monday" is not a thing for which there is a day off.

Easter Monday is a thing in Washington DC. If you look at the calendar for DCPS, they have a star denoting the Easter Monday is a "Major Religious Observance" but they don't have the day off. DCPS has moved their Spring break for SY23-24 to April 15-19 neither on Easter week (3/25-3/30) nor Passover (4/22-4/30).

DCPS calendar: https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/SY%2023-24%20Calendar%20Final%2002092023%20English.pdf

Reason for Easter Monday: https://www.theroot.com/for-dc-easter-monday-at-the-national-zoo-is-an-african-1790859364

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every religion has at least 1 day off on the FCPS calendar. Remember: equity!

Yes, equity. How horrible it is to show respect to a diverse community & let them celebrate their holidays. /sarcasm

Why does the public school system need to celebrate a religious holiday? I thought libs wanted religion out of schools.

There’s no better way to keep religion out of schools than to close the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every religion has at least 1 day off on the FCPS calendar. Remember: equity!

Yes, equity. How horrible it is to show respect to a diverse community & let them celebrate their holidays. /sarcasm

Why does the public school system need to celebrate a religious holiday? I thought libs wanted religion out of schools.

There’s no better way to keep religion out of schools than to close the schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should only get Federal Holidays off. We don't need Yom Kippur off.

I'm the outlier that loves all the random days off in FCPS. The long weekends give us a chance to see family, relax, whatever.

I completely disagreed with the previous O day policy where they couldn't teach any new material or give a test or take a field trip. That was more of an issue than the days off. But recognizing major religious holidays with a school closure is fine with me.

That's cool. Some parents work for a living.

I work for a living, too. I also know it’s not the responsibility of the school system to care for my child.