Why is school closed on Sept. 25th?

[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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

The observance of Yom Kippur, or any other religious holiday, is a personal choice. I know I know, not a popular opinion. But no one has a gun to your head. I don’t see why 99% of students and their families need to be inconvenienced to enable others to seamlessly engage with the faith that they chose.

-Culturally Jewish family that does not celebrate any religious holiday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

It’s not hard to take A day off particularly to mark a day you celebrate. It is burdensome to have to take like 5-6 days off all for holidays you don’t celebrate. It’s not just Yom Kippur. It’s multiple other days that were added too.

[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

Rastafarians? No insult to them (just an example), but if everyone was to get a holiday, there would be no school. What should be the size of the student population or petition necessary to get a holiday?

I don't have the answer.

You are not actually comparing Jews to Rastafarians

Are YOU saying Jews are more important than Rastafarians?

I am saying you cannot seriously compare taking a day to celebrate the holiday of one of the 3 major Abrahamic religions to taking days off for every single faith no matter how niche. There is a huge difference between schools saying let’s take off for Buddhist and Rastafarian and Bah’ai and Pagan and whatever else holidays and schools saying, this is a major Jewish holiday that many people observe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

It’s not hard to take A day off particularly to mark a day you celebrate. It is burdensome to have to take like 5-6 days off all for holidays you don’t celebrate. It’s not just Yom Kippur. It’s multiple other days that were added too.

It's 4 days and they don't all even fall on school days every year. Rosh Hashanah was on a weekend this year and sometimes Eid is in the summer. Calm down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

The observance of Yom Kippur, or any other religious holiday, is a personal choice. I know I know, not a popular opinion. But no one has a gun to your head. I don’t see why 99% of students and their families need to be inconvenienced to enable others to seamlessly engage with the faith that they chose.

-Culturally Jewish family that does not celebrate any religious holiday

Teacher here. I think a lot of these days are now off due to staffing challenges. Every day is a challenge with teachers out so adding a few into the bunch can be problematic. We have not had one day this year with no one out. Most days we have 5 or more staff members out. So yes, Yom Kippur could mean 10 or so teachers/staff missing from a building when you include the normal reasons for being out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

It’s not hard to take A day off particularly to mark a day you celebrate. It is burdensome to have to take like 5-6 days off all for holidays you don’t celebrate. It’s not just Yom Kippur. It’s multiple other days that were added too.

It's 4 days and they don't all even fall on school days every year. Rosh Hashanah was on a weekend this year and sometimes Eid is in the summer. Calm down.

Oh, guess what! Diwali is also on a weekend this year. So there are only 2 religious holidays in the calendar this year: Yom Kippur on Monday and Eid in April (let's not do all this complaining again in April, please). It's not "5-6 days off." At most, it's going to be 4 days in a given calendar year, if none of them fall on weekends or summer.

Next year, it's only 3 days, because Yom Kippur falls on a weekend.

[Anonymous]

Move winter break to February. Makes more sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

The observance of Yom Kippur, or any other religious holiday, is a personal choice. I know I know, not a popular opinion. But no one has a gun to your head. I don’t see why 99% of students and their families need to be inconvenienced to enable others to seamlessly engage with the faith that they chose.

-Culturally Jewish family that does not celebrate any religious holiday

Teacher here. I think a lot of these days are now off due to staffing challenges. Every day is a challenge with teachers out so adding a few into the bunch can be problematic. We have not had one day this year with no one out. Most days we have 5 or more staff members out. So yes, Yom Kippur could mean 10 or so teachers/staff missing from a building when you include the normal reasons for being out.

This is the problem. 2-4 teachers out is not that big of a deal, but is soon as it moves towards 6-8 (especially with an uptick in COVID cases) it becomes a real problem to find sub at each school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

It’s not hard to take A day off particularly to mark a day you celebrate. It is burdensome to have to take like 5-6 days off all for holidays you don’t celebrate. It’s not just Yom Kippur. It’s multiple other days that were added too.

You know that kids get 180 days in school, right? 5 days off for holidays during the "school year" means that you do not need to pay for an extra week of summer camp. There are plenty of cheap drop-off childcare locations or tweens that are also out of school and looking to babysit.

[Anonymous]

When you start bemoaning Columbus Day and Presidents’ day I will listen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you start bemoaning Columbus Day and Presidents’ day I will listen.

I think the kids should be in school on Columbus Day and President’s Day. Toss in MLK and Veteran’s Day and I would be thrilled. I think a good number of parents who have the Federal Holidays off enjoyed it when the kids were in school on Veteran’s Day. It was nice to have a day to run errands or get a lunch date in. For every religious/cultural day we add, remove a Federal Holiday.

I would like more 5 day school weeks and for the school year to not drag into the middle of June. This year isn’t as bad as last year because so many of the new days off are on the weekend but last years schedule was awful. There were too many disruptions. The lack of a consistent schedule is hard for kids with disabilities and ES kids.

[Anonymous]

I'm Jewish and I would pull my kids out of school for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur if they didn't get them off. But I give a huge thank you to the school board for not forcing us and our kids to make the choice between their religion and their education for our holiest days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So use a vacation day? It must be so easy to just take a day, since that's the suggestion for Jewish teachers and students to just take time off to observe Yom Kippur.

It’s not hard to take A day off particularly to mark a day you celebrate. It is burdensome to have to take like 5-6 days off all for holidays you don’t celebrate. It’s not just Yom Kippur. It’s multiple other days that were added too.

You know that kids get 180 days in school, right? 5 days off for holidays during the "school year" means that you do not need to pay for an extra week of summer camp. There are plenty of cheap drop-off childcare locations or tweens that are also out of school and looking to babysit.

It's only FOUR days!

[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

Rastafarians? No insult to them (just an example), but if everyone was to get a holiday, there would be no school. What should be the size of the student population or petition necessary to get a holiday?

I don't have the answer.

You are not actually comparing Jews to Rastafarians

Are YOU saying Jews are more important than Rastafarians?

I am saying you cannot seriously compare taking a day to celebrate the holiday of one of the 3 major Abrahamic religions to taking days off for every single faith no matter how niche. There is a huge difference between schools saying let’s take off for Buddhist and Rastafarian and Bah’ai and Pagan and whatever else holidays and schools saying, this is a major Jewish holiday that many people observe.

Do you have any rough numbers for Fairfax? Relatively it may not be that many.

I think there is just some general frustration that there are lots of partial weeks (disruptive for many families) and despite the fact that school starts much earlier, it still doesn't end until mid June.

I personally think there are too many other closures and the winter break is at least 3 days too long.