APS calendar- 26-27

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if APS will rethink school on December 21 and 22. The Fairfax board has a thread about emails from FCPS about not missing schools around the breaks, attendance is important etc.

We won’t be traveling so my kids will be there but I’m going to guess there will be a lot of student and staff absences.

Such a stupid schedule. No one is going to be there those days.

We'll be there! I have no issue with those days. Why do we need to stop school on December 18th for a holiday that is a FULL WEEK LATER?

Because most of us want a good long break?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd LOVE to see them cement Spring Break to the first week of April. I hate that it moves around. Just nail it down!! Also, planning less around the Christian holidays means you don't have to plan for every other holiday off. So let's release Spring break!

I'd also love to have a week long fall break instead of all the random days off (election day followed by Vet's day always drives me nuts).

I’d like spring break to be the end of third quarter and include the grade prep day.

Sounds good to me.

Yup, let's do this. I'm onboard for fall break (taking away any combination of Friday before Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Columbus Day, Election Day, Veteran's Day, Eid or Diwali works for me - if you tack it on to Thanksgiving you only need to pick two) and making Spring Break a fixed week instead of floating with Easter.

The Friday before Labor Day is required by Virginia law. As for the other days I'd pick Election Day/1Q grade prep and the 3Q grade prep for Fall Break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd LOVE to see them cement Spring Break to the first week of April. I hate that it moves around. Just nail it down!! Also, planning less around the Christian holidays means you don't have to plan for every other holiday off. So let's release Spring break!

I'd also love to have a week long fall break instead of all the random days off (election day followed by Vet's day always drives me nuts).

I’d like spring break to be the end of third quarter and include the grade prep day.

Sounds good to me.

Yup, let's do this. I'm onboard for fall break (taking away any combination of Friday before Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Columbus Day, Election Day, Veteran's Day, Eid or Diwali works for me - if you tack it on to Thanksgiving you only need to pick two) and making Spring Break a fixed week instead of floating with Easter.

The Friday before Labor Day is required by Virginia law. As for the other days I'd pick Election Day/1Q grade prep and the 3Q grade prep for Fall Break.

Any of the changes proposed will only bring about new issues if they are not coordinated with FCPS (and to a lesser extent, ACPS). This is especially true regarding spring break. Too many teachers live in a different country than that which their kids go to school. When winter or spring breaks don’t align, the sub shortage is out of control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd LOVE to see them cement Spring Break to the first week of April. I hate that it moves around. Just nail it down!! Also, planning less around the Christian holidays means you don't have to plan for every other holiday off. So let's release Spring break!

I'd also love to have a week long fall break instead of all the random days off (election day followed by Vet's day always drives me nuts).

I’d like spring break to be the end of third quarter and include the grade prep day.

Sounds good to me.

Yup, let's do this. I'm onboard for fall break (taking away any combination of Friday before Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Columbus Day, Election Day, Veteran's Day, Eid or Diwali works for me - if you tack it on to Thanksgiving you only need to pick two) and making Spring Break a fixed week instead of floating with Easter.

The Friday before Labor Day is required by Virginia law. As for the other days I'd pick Election Day/1Q grade prep and the 3Q grade prep for Fall Break.

Any of the changes proposed will only bring about new issues if they are not coordinated with FCPS (and to a lesser extent, ACPS). This is especially true regarding spring break. Too many teachers live in a different country than that which their kids go to school. When winter or spring breaks don’t align, the sub shortage is out of control.

This is frequently mentioned as a reason why we (APS) can’t change our days — teachers living in different systems (primarily, Fairfax) won’t come to work in APS because their own (presumably elementary?) children won’t be in school. I don’t buy it. Either this is true in which case APS is completely beholden to the Fairfax calendar 100% because we cannot staff our schools OR it’s not true and we can staff our schools. We are not 100% aligned with Fairfax, which means to me that it’s not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd LOVE to see them cement Spring Break to the first week of April. I hate that it moves around. Just nail it down!! Also, planning less around the Christian holidays means you don't have to plan for every other holiday off. So let's release Spring break!

I'd also love to have a week long fall break instead of all the random days off (election day followed by Vet's day always drives me nuts).

I’d like spring break to be the end of third quarter and include the grade prep day.

Sounds good to me.

Yup, let's do this. I'm onboard for fall break (taking away any combination of Friday before Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Columbus Day, Election Day, Veteran's Day, Eid or Diwali works for me - if you tack it on to Thanksgiving you only need to pick two) and making Spring Break a fixed week instead of floating with Easter.

The Friday before Labor Day is required by Virginia law. As for the other days I'd pick Election Day/1Q grade prep and the 3Q grade prep for Fall Break.

Any of the changes proposed will only bring about new issues if they are not coordinated with FCPS (and to a lesser extent, ACPS). This is especially true regarding spring break. Too many teachers live in a different country than that which their kids go to school. When winter or spring breaks don’t align, the sub shortage is out of control.

This is frequently mentioned as a reason why we (APS) can’t change our days — teachers living in different systems (primarily, Fairfax) won’t come to work in APS because their own (presumably elementary?) children won’t be in school. I don’t buy it. Either this is true in which case APS is completely beholden to the Fairfax calendar 100% because we cannot staff our schools OR it’s not true and we can staff our schools. We are not 100% aligned with Fairfax, which means to me that it’s not true.

+1 I don't buy it either. I worked in APS before the calendars were synched and it was not a huge problem. Something they put out a few years ago said that around 53% of APS staff members lived in Arlington, the rest are spread out over several counties. There's not real reason to align with FCPS (not that we fully do, they start and get out a week earlier)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
When does winter break not align? It's always includes Christmas and New Year's Day although the length appears to differ in APS next year with school on Dec 21,22 but in 2027-28 it's back to 2 full weeks!
As for spring break, aligning isn't my complaint it's how it's chosen which is my complaint. Instead of the same time every year it switches weeks and always ends up being the week before Easter!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if APS will rethink school on December 21 and 22. The Fairfax board has a thread about emails from FCPS about not missing schools around the breaks, attendance is important etc.

We won’t be traveling so my kids will be there but I’m going to guess there will be a lot of student and staff absences.

I thought that whole exercise from a few years ago solidified a guaranteed two week winter break? Why is it so short again. Does this mean the end of the school year in June is up for debate, too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They either need to come off the 180 day commitment or eliminate holidays — don’t care if religious or Columbus Day or whatever. Something has to give. The calendar is out of control. We’ve gotten nothing out of moving up a week. They just added more days off. All the nonsense about more instructional days before AP exams was just a scam to put in the religious holidays.

+1000

This is the worst one yet since we’ve had all the changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t APS pass a broad policy about developing calendars and say they would do 2 weeks at every Christmas holiday? A couple years ago.

Indeed they did. There was a whole big assessment with “stakeholder input” over months. Everyone was focused on the start date and somehow APS didn’t mention that they would keep kids in school until the end of June. Latest start to summer in the nation. And yes, two full weeks for winter. What is this 2026/27 nonsense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The calendar gets you no matter what age your kids are. If they are young, you have to take days off or pay for care in all the random days off. If they are older, they miss out on summer opportunities that start before APS gets out of school. For this upcoming summer every single program my daughter was interested started before June 18. I’m sure there are programs that start later but we haven’t found any of interest to her that are also within our price range.

Out relatives in the Midwest are out the first week of June and start the same week. Our relatives in Massachusetts get out two days earlier and start a week later.

But the loudest voices who can scream racist the longest get their way.

How is getting out earlier in June radish?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they need to make a choice between grading days at the end of the marking period and religious holidays.

Those days seem so random, but apparently yes, end of marking period. Those don’t align with FFX…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think they need to make a choice between grading days at the end of the marking period and religious holidays.

Or cut the Federal holidays like Indigenous Peoples day, MLK day, President's Day, etc. They can be observed as part of the curriculum.

They could. But many parents are off on these days. Virtually no one is off on the non-federal religious holidays.

I am generally not a supporter of APS closing school for religious holidays but the counterpoint is that no one has to miss school for Columbus Day or President's Day observance (and most parents would love a day off from work when the kids are in school - that is the holy grail!!!). But if you are Jewish and observing Yom Kippur, your kids can't go to school that day. That said, that is not true for all the religious holidays. Even with Rosh Hashanah some families would probably let their kids go to school for the afternoon by high school.

Most of the Jewish holidays are several days long each, at a minimum. Each Eid is also a full three days. So this seems very performative. Are we a public school or a religious school?

Just excuse people’s holidays and don’t schedule exams then. Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd LOVE to see them cement Spring Break to the first week of April. I hate that it moves around. Just nail it down!! Also, planning less around the Christian holidays means you don't have to plan for every other holiday off. So let's release Spring break!

I'd also love to have a week long fall break instead of all the random days off (election day followed by Vet's day always drives me nuts).

100%!! We celebrate Christian holidays and I’m all on board with this. The randomly changing days mid week are awful. Give us one week in Spring and one week in Fall. And two weeks in winter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'd LOVE to see them cement Spring Break to the first week of April. I hate that it moves around. Just nail it down!! Also, planning less around the Christian holidays means you don't have to plan for every other holiday off. So let's release Spring break!

I'd also love to have a week long fall break instead of all the random days off (election day followed by Vet's day always drives me nuts).

100%!! We celebrate Christian holidays and I’m all on board with this. The randomly changing days mid week are awful. Give us one week in Spring and one week in Fall. And two weeks in winter.

Far too logical for Duran. He copied FFX so he doesn't have to think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They either need to come off the 180 day commitment or eliminate holidays — don’t care if religious or Columbus Day or whatever. Something has to give. The calendar is out of control. We’ve gotten nothing out of moving up a week. They just added more days off. All the nonsense about more instructional days before AP exams was just a scam to put in the religious holidays.

+1000

This is the worst one yet since we’ve had all the changes.

The 180 days is thanks to APE. That's what they lobbied for and APS caved to them.