Creating a mock 2023-2024 FCPS Calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

No. Just stop. Your experience WFH with kids at home is not universal. Stop acting like it’s sooo easy. Your job must not be that hard if you can handle constant interruptions all day.

(Here’s where you chime in and say your job is super important and you’re just better at life than others… the usual BS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While we are all waiting for a few more months until the official calendar, it isn't really too hard to get close to figuring out what the calendar will look like.

Per VA codes:

*The school year must be 180 days or a minimum of 990 hours
*The following holidays are observed: Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples' Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, MLK Day, Presidents' Day and Memorial Day
*Thanksgiving vacation will be Wednesday through Friday
*Winter vacation will be 5-10 days, depending on when the legal holidays fall. The school week before or after the holiday should be at least two days.
*Spring vacation is a full M-F week

Apparent FCPS preferences:

*Add the following holidays (usually as teacher workdays): Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Orthodox Good Friday, Eid al Fitr, Lunar New Year.
*Provide teacher workdays at the end of each Quarter
*Election Day is a holiday
*Winter Break goes through January 2nd
*Spring Break is the first week of April

Calendar specifics for 2023-2024:

*With Christmas/New Years on a Monday, the regulations would favor a shorter 11-day Winter Break. Saturday 12/23 - Tuesday 1/2
*Easter falls on Sunday, March 31st, 2024, so Spring Break the first week of April is a near certainty
*Diwali and Lunar New Year are on weekends and will not be observed

If you plug all of that into a calendar that starts on Monday, August 21st, 2023 and ends on Friday, June 14th, 2023, you end up with 184 days. So, there are ~4 days to play with depending on how you structure the end of the quarters.


Potential options are to:

*Start or end the school year with partial weeks
*Add days to Winter Break (such as Thursday 12/21 and Friday 12/22)
*Provide an extended Spring Break (Eid is on Wednesday 4/10, so the Mon/Tue of that week)
*Provide random days off

So, what say you, cranky DCUM posters?

Absolute no to adding religious holidays of any stripe. Why do we fight so hard to keep religion out of schools only to bring it back willfully? Sorry but to the religious conservative Christians, Muslims, and Jews, you can take the days off that you need with your family. I don't want school shut down for religion.

I know, but Christmas! It is a federal holiday that is not going anywhere and there is zero that we can do about it. Once you start carving out for one religion, you need to include them all. So hard no. Fed only coupled with the teacher work days at the end of quarter.

Umm, Christmas isn't a holiday on the school calendar, so I guess we're good.

What do you think Winter Break is for?

Vacation. At the giver education levels it’s time for grading and paperwork. It’s a semester break.

[Anonymous]

I wish we could end 1-2 weeks earlier in June.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two weeks over the new year, a week at thanksgiving, a week in the spring, and a few random federal holidays. Why is this hard?

It's not. It's just that we have an incompetent SB and some loud, vocal parents who happen to be teachers who don't want to work.

I’m not a fan of the current calendar. It’s choppy. I don’t understand your point. Their contract is still 195 days however those days fall and the students still have 180, right?

Their point is that they’re parroting the same BS they’ve been spewing for 2 years to try to blame all societal ills on teachers, whereas if they spent half as much time raising their kids as they do posting online everyone would benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish we could end 1-2 weeks earlier in June.

If it meant a more regular school year calendar that would be fine. So would starting two weeks later. Too many random, short, and interrupted weeks this year. I don’t really care about the length of summer but the school year feels like a ridiculously unorganized and overlong sports season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

No. Just stop. Your experience WFH with kids at home is not universal. Stop acting like it’s sooo easy. Your job must not be that hard if you can handle constant interruptions all day.

(Here’s where you chime in and say your job is super important and you’re just better at life than others… the usual BS).

At what point did I say my experience was universal? I literally said "Many people would hate this." Just because my experience and preferences differ from yours doesn't make mine invalid. Get over yourself. I think it's more about what degree of flexibility your job provides than how "hard" it is... e.g. I can usually shift some hours to evenings or other days. Same with my spouse. Between us we can manage the kids home 1 day a week without ruining our careers. YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two weeks over the new year, a week at thanksgiving, a week in the spring, and a few random federal holidays. Why is this hard?

It's not. It's just that we have an incompetent SB and some loud, vocal parents who happen to be teachers who don't want to work.

I’m not a fan of the current calendar. It’s choppy. I don’t understand your point. Their contract is still 195 days however those days fall and the students still have 180, right?

Their point is that they’re parroting the same BS they’ve been spewing for 2 years to try to blame all societal ills on teachers, whereas if they spent half as much time raising their kids as they do posting online everyone would benefit.

No one is blaming teachers!! I am blaming the School Board and the lazy Gatehouse people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we should always go until Dec. 20 or 21st regardless of how Xmas falls on the calendar. It's silly to start Xmas break on Dec. 15 or 16th.

Nothing wrong with starting the first week of school on a Wednesday. Makes for a more gentle transition back to school when you get a weekend after 3 days of being back.

Don't know why you think Spring Break is going to be the first week in April if Easter is March 31. The tradition in FCPS is to have spring break BEFORE Easter. So, it would likely be the last week of March.

I think kids should be IN SCHOOL for Veterans Day AND MLK Day. They can talk about being a minority of any kind on MLK Day as well as productive activism. We already have days off for end of the quarter plus snow days in January. Same with Presidents Day -- kids should be in school. We don't need to be going unitl the middle of June.

NOTHING useful happens after June 1st. People see JUNE and they check out. So, any days of school in June are just wasted time (subtracting from the 180 that kids need). The kids are in the building, but they aren't getting anything for their time if it's in June. So the earlier we end in June, the better.

Agree on Winter Break.

Not sure about starting school mid-week. I'm thinking mainly of child-care and how camps are generally full weeks.

My impression was that FCPS was trying to go to a fixed Spring Break schedule rather than trying to follow Easter around.

Veterans/MLK/Presidents are going to be holidays. That seems to be a state thing.

It seems like your strongest preference would be ending early.

Veterans Day was never a holiday in FCPS until THIS year. It's not a "state thing."

Yes, my strongest preference is to end school as close to June 1st as possible ONLY b/c I HATE having my kids go to school and get nothing out of it. I would rather lose "holidays" during the school year b/c those are days that will be treated as actual school days. Any day in June is treated as babysitting (even at the HS level). My kids hate going to school and doing nothing valuable.

+1. After SOLs, our school just babysits and shows movie after movie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Add St Patrick's Day so White people stop complaining about Diwali.

that’s solely an Irish thing. That’s not an ‘every white person’ holiday at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

No. Just stop. Your experience WFH with kids at home is not universal. Stop acting like it’s sooo easy. Your job must not be that hard if you can handle constant interruptions all day.

(Here’s where you chime in and say your job is super important and you’re just better at life than others… the usual BS).

Your poor parenting is apparent. I WFH back in the early 2010s (kids ages 5-10, throughout the years) when it was less common. I set expectations Dr when they could and could not bother me during the day. It’s not that hard, your either lazy or your kids walk all over you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

OBVIOUSLY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

No. Just stop. Your experience WFH with kids at home is not universal. Stop acting like it’s sooo easy. Your job must not be that hard if you can handle constant interruptions all day.

(Here’s where you chime in and say your job is super important and you’re just better at life than others… the usual BS).

Your poor parenting is apparent. I WFH back in the early 2010s (kids ages 5-10, throughout the years) when it was less common. I set expectations Dr when they could and could not bother me during the day. It’s not that hard, your either lazy or your kids walk all over you.

My kids aren't interested in watching tv all day long. Like I would let them, but they don't want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make every week no more than a 4-day school week. If there's not a federal/religious/other holiday, make the day off a Monday or a Friday. Generally align them so there's intermittent 2-day/4-day weekends (rather than continuous 3-day weekends). Still allows for a month of summer vacation. Students and teachers get more opportunities to breathe and catch up throughout the school year, and avoids the worst of summer academic slide by limiting the contiguous time off to a month.

Many people would hate this. I would love this.

Yeah some of have jobs. Will Big Daddy's big law job pay for childcare for the rest of us?

I have a job, but I can handle having the kids home 1 day a week. Just WFH that day, have them do workbooks, play in the yard or with friends, give 'em a little screentime after lunch, etc. same as I do on the days off we have now. It was a challenge in the early days of the pandemic to make the adjustment, but it's pretty routine now. Obviously wouldn't work as well for people who can't WFH.

No. Just stop. Your experience WFH with kids at home is not universal. Stop acting like it’s sooo easy. Your job must not be that hard if you can handle constant interruptions all day.

(Here’s where you chime in and say your job is super important and you’re just better at life than others… the usual BS).

Your poor parenting is apparent. I WFH back in the early 2010s (kids ages 5-10, throughout the years) when it was less common. I set expectations Dr when they could and could not bother me during the day. It’s not that hard, your either lazy or your kids walk all over you.

My kids aren't interested in watching tv all day long. Like I would let them, but they don't want to.

You do realize a huge portion of FCPS doesn't WFH or have stay at home parents, right??? You do realize that taking so many days off from work is a huge burden on families--particularly families who have both parents doing shift work or hourly work or work in industries with little vacation time. So your "plop them in front of the tv, it's not that hard" chant is tiresome.