Why does FCPS have all these random days of week off???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh please excuse us for being Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim. PLEASE excuse us for not demanding one week off for our largest holiday and then another two week holiday for another big holiday like Christians do. EXCUSE US.

#ignorantwhitechristianskindofsuck

If you need religious holidays off, go to a religious schools. Keep religious calendar out of public schools. Xmas is a federal holiday so part of fed calendar. All other Christian holidays are Sundays and not a school day off. And the gripe about Xmas is silly. 75% of the country celebrates it. That’s an overwhelming majority so we should rightly plan around staffing and student shortages.

Having Eid, Diwali and high holidays off is ridiculous. Fed holidays and only fed days should be observed

Then give kids ONE DAY OFF FOR CHRISTMAS like federal government workers get. Like Jews are getting for Rosh Hoshanah, Hindus are getting for Diwali, Muslims are getting for Eid. I'm sure the Hindu Indian immigrants would love to take two weeks to visit their families for their actual holiday rather than having to do it in December because that's when the Christian holiday is.

Then don't move to a country where 75%+ of the country celebrates Christmas if you don't like it. I mean, this isn't rocket science. Indian Hindus and Muslims knew this before they moved. In fact, I don't think any immigrants who move to this country believe that the culture should shift to minimize Christmas (which is honestly the biggest holiday in this country both culturally and religiously) just because some immigrants who move here don't celebrate. You must not live with or know any recent immigrants. I am married to one and actually work in immigration. The idea that we have to incorporate every single holiday for each religious, ethnic, immigrant, and/or minority group is just too much. We cannot celebrate them all without losing complete efficiency. Immigrants adapt to our calendar. Done.

+1,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would love to see the survey results because most of the people I know responded that they didn't want a ton of religious holidays, they didn't want Veteran's Day as a student holiday, they wanted a one week Winter Break, and they wanted to reduce the numbers of weeks with days off. My sample size is small, obviously, but I know of very few people who wanted this abomination of a calendar.

Ideally, we would have some 4 day weekends, if not actual breaks, at the end of each quarter so that Teachers have time to finish grading and entering grades. Include Teacher work days that are actual work days and not a bunch of BS meetings that none of the Teachers I know think are useful in any way where Teachers can actually get work done but not the crazy number that FCPS has.

I think they conduct the survey, write questions in a way that is impossible for parents to actually say what they want so that they can create a huge mess that pisses off everyone.

Your sample group matches mine. I don't know of anyone who likes the current calendar with random days off. It is just another hurdle thrown to working parents. How are we supposed to find childcare for all these random days? Or does FCPS assume that all the parents will remain working from home indefinitely? Public schools are supposed to serve the public. We fund them for that purpose.

How can you not know the answer to this question? What have you been using for childcare up to this point? You are supposed to use SACC, a hired babysitter, a private before/aftercare facility (Childtime, Sparkle, Chesterbrook, etc), a Tae Kwon Do facility, a day camp (The NZone, The Fieldhouse, etc), a moms group, and so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh please excuse us for being Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim. PLEASE excuse us for not demanding one week off for our largest holiday and then another two week holiday for another big holiday like Christians do. EXCUSE US.

#ignorantwhitechristianskindofsuck

If you need religious holidays off, go to a religious schools. Keep religious calendar out of public schools. Xmas is a federal holiday so part of fed calendar. All other Christian holidays are Sundays and not a school day off. And the gripe about Xmas is silly. 75% of the country celebrates it. That’s an overwhelming majority so we should rightly plan around staffing and student shortages.

Having Eid, Diwali and high holidays off is ridiculous. Fed holidays and only fed days should be observed

Then give kids ONE DAY OFF FOR CHRISTMAS like federal government workers get. Like Jews are getting for Rosh Hoshanah, Hindus are getting for Diwali, Muslims are getting for Eid. I'm sure the Hindu Indian immigrants would love to take two weeks to visit their families for their actual holiday rather than having to do it in December because that's when the Christian holiday is.

Then don't move to a country where 75%+ of the country celebrates Christmas if you don't like it. I mean, this isn't rocket science. Indian Hindus and Muslims knew this before they moved. In fact, I don't think any immigrants who move to this country believe that the culture should shift to minimize Christmas (which is honestly the biggest holiday in this country both culturally and religiously) just because some immigrants who move here don't celebrate. You must not live with or know any recent immigrants. I am married to one and actually work in immigration. The idea that we have to incorporate every single holiday for each religious, ethnic, immigrant, and/or minority group is just too much. We cannot celebrate them all without losing complete efficiency. Immigrants adapt to our calendar. Done.

+1,000,000,000 and I'd add more zeros if I could be bothered.

[Anonymous]

Before y’all yet too anti-immigrant on us…I’m an immigrant (Muslim) that’s married to another immigrant (Hindu) and I don’t want Divali, Eid, Chinese New Year and weeks off for Christmas! I want my children to be in school as much as possible throughout the school year.

I sent them to a secular(public) school with that expectation that religious holidays should not result in school closures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before y’all yet too anti-immigrant on us…I’m an immigrant (Muslim) that’s married to another immigrant (Hindu) and I don’t want Divali, Eid, Chinese New Year and weeks off for Christmas! I want my children to be in school as much as possible throughout the school year.

I sent them to a secular(public) school with that expectation that religious holidays should not result in school closures.

Oh and I forgot Yom Kippur and Rosh hasanah. It seriously doesn’t end!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before y’all yet too anti-immigrant on us…I’m an immigrant (Muslim) that’s married to another immigrant (Hindu) and I don’t want Divali, Eid, Chinese New Year and weeks off for Christmas! I want my children to be in school as much as possible throughout the school year.

I sent them to a secular(public) school with that expectation that religious holidays should not result in school closures.

This. Most immigrants do not want all the cultural days off that the schools give them. They want their kids in school to learn, they want to work, and make the most of why they decided to be here in the first place. In my experience, it is usually the 2nd or 3rd gen plus the mainly white liberals who insist on doing the cultural and religious recognitions to pat themselves on the back. Of course, the immigrant communities then feel the repercussions of that resentment which is not fair. Enough. Fed holidays only. Keep the kids in school.

[Anonymous]

Maybe FCPS is trying to go back to Half Day Mondays and this is a trial run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before y’all yet too anti-immigrant on us…I’m an immigrant (Muslim) that’s married to another immigrant (Hindu) and I don’t want Divali, Eid, Chinese New Year and weeks off for Christmas! I want my children to be in school as much as possible throughout the school year.

I sent them to a secular(public) school with that expectation that religious holidays should not result in school closures.

Frankly I doubt it is first generation immigrant families that are driving the push for all these days off. I think they are more likely to realize that in their home country they have a different set of holidays and a wave of Americans moving there all of a sudden would not shift what their country celebrates & when.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been a million calendar threads. Parents were surveyed. Clearly you didn’t want what others did.

There is no way anyone voted for the schedule as is. No one likes it, no one. Starts early, ends late. Tons of random days off.

Op here. I was just with some people at the beach and they are all starting school after Labor Day. How is it that we are starting 2 weeks later but getting out later in mid June??? Ugh.

It's because people like you demanded off two weeks for Christmas.

Wrong. We're now getting out mid-June because of the 4 new holidays they added in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before y’all yet too anti-immigrant on us…I’m an immigrant (Muslim) that’s married to another immigrant (Hindu) and I don’t want Divali, Eid, Chinese New Year and weeks off for Christmas! I want my children to be in school as much as possible throughout the school year.

I sent them to a secular(public) school with that expectation that religious holidays should not result in school closures.

I'm glad we have the person that speaks for all Muslims and Hindus on this board. Makes things easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fed here who just realized a week ago that even with my 26 days of annual leave a year (8 hours a pay period), I still won’t have enough to cover the school year, which is 28 days off (not counting early release days). Will always need back-up care, day camps, SACC for some of the school days off.

Ok, parenting is like that.

[Anonymous]

Go to another country and you won’t be getting ‘your’ holidays off. You’ll get their state holidays. We need to stick to that here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go to another country and you won’t be getting ‘your’ holidays off. You’ll get their state holidays. We need to stick to that here.

Just like DCUM, keeping it white and privileged.

[Anonymous]

I don't live Fairfax County, and my opinion is not worth much, but I firmly believe that finding a way to make the school calendar more consistent, regular, and better aligned with the schedules of the majority of families would go a long way toward fostering better relationships between parents and teachers and freeing up parents to provide better support to their kids' education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go to another country and you won’t be getting ‘your’ holidays off. You’ll get their state holidays. We need to stick to that here.

Just like DCUM, keeping it white and privileged.

Ok. You tell us - in what other country would it be likely for someone who is a minority religion or cultural group to succeed in requiring the overwhelming share of people NOT of their religion / culture to observe a day off work/school. I’m curious.

Almost all federal holidays are not religious. Xmas - which is celebrated by an overwhelming majority of Americans whether they are Christian or non-religious - is the sole exception. School holidays track federal holidays primarily. Personally I am in favor of a 10 day winter break (2 days or so before Xmas to 1/2) but the people with money to travel keep voting for 2 full weeks. As for Easter - most parents do not care if spring break is the week overlapping with Easter or not and even teachers likely mostly care that it is the SAME week as other districts regardless of when that ends up being.

The height of privilege is not observing holidays that the large majority of the country observes.