Melanie Meren's FB post about the calendar

[Anonymous]

You can teach new material on O days now. So that argument doesn’t apply.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Sorry, love the non-5 day weeks. They are great. Summer is such a pain to plan, and we (and most of our friends) much prefer a day here and there, rather than additional weeks in the summer.

Now that I have somewhat older children (taking SOL’s and trying to get into Algebra in 7th etc.) I am actually pretty concerned and anxious about the relative lack of instructional time they get compared to other districts that have more full weeks. Aren’t you concerned that your kids are behind and being short-changed?

I fear this will only get worse as my kids get older. I can supplement now with upper elementary kids. I can’t teach a HS junior AP Calc or AP French or high school level cello. The HS block scheduling makes this even worse. Missing “a day” is like missing two days in one class. It all adds up very quickly.

They aren't getting less instructional time. It's just paced differently. In fact, in years that we don't use a lot of snow days (like last year), they actually get quite a bit more instructional time than surrounding districts. We build in enough hours to have something like 11 snow days. If they aren't used, that's bonus time. As opposed to, say Anne Arundel County, that only builds in 3-5 snow days.

It’s not about the snow days really, we can’t control the weather. I wish they weren’t so quick to close though.

But just as an example: the AP Calc exam is given on May 11 this year. The district where I grew up has 173 school days for students. 160 are before the AP test - not counting Memorial Day where they have a 3 day weekend.

FCPS has 179 school days for students (counting O days and early release days as full days, which is being generous). 154 of those days are before May 11. Again this is not counting the massive 5 day weekend for Memorial Day. The point is other districts get in a full week or more of instructional time before state and AP testing in May. And where I grew up still did 2 full weeks at winter break this year, 3 days at Thanksgiving, and the same spring break as us and aligned with Easter. It just feels like we’re putting learning at a disadvantage with this calendar. It’s too many days off, too much playing catch-up.

The 5 day memorial is ideal for HS taking AP so they can study. By time hit May it’s no longer about teacher instruction anyway.

Thank you for telling us you know nothing about when AP exams happen without saying it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can teach new material on O days now. So that argument doesn’t apply.

Well that’s good at least. Our kids are only a little over one week disadvantaged compared to others …

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing: if they create more 5-day school weeks the school year will start later and/or end sooner. Either scenario is fine with me, but childcare will be needed when school is not in session. That's the financial side of things. And with the amount of advanced notice families have had to get childcare lined up - calendars published years in advance - only emergencies and snow days are not known ahead of time for planning.

Please stop this lie. Early release dates for ‘25-‘26 were only published in May of ‘25.

4 months wasn't enough time to plan for them?

Four months isn’t “years”. When you start out by lying it’s clear you’re not to be taken seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing: if they create more 5-day school weeks the school year will start later and/or end sooner. Either scenario is fine with me, but childcare will be needed when school is not in session. That's the financial side of things. And with the amount of advanced notice families have had to get childcare lined up - calendars published years in advance - only emergencies and snow days are not known ahead of time for planning.

Or they could remove the extra week of winter break like other school districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing: if they create more 5-day school weeks the school year will start later and/or end sooner. Either scenario is fine with me, but childcare will be needed when school is not in session. That's the financial side of things. And with the amount of advanced notice families have had to get childcare lined up - calendars published years in advance - only emergencies and snow days are not known ahead of time for planning.

Or they could remove the extra week of winter break like other school districts.

You’ll have to pry that two week winter break from my cold, dead hands. I can assure you that’s not going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing: if they create more 5-day school weeks the school year will start later and/or end sooner. Either scenario is fine with me, but childcare will be needed when school is not in session. That's the financial side of things. And with the amount of advanced notice families have had to get childcare lined up - calendars published years in advance - only emergencies and snow days are not known ahead of time for planning.

Or they could remove the extra week of winter break like other school districts.

They can have a longer winter break. It’s the endless “religious and cultural observances” that need to be curtailed. Or they need to start school in like, early August.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing: if they create more 5-day school weeks the school year will start later and/or end sooner. Either scenario is fine with me, but childcare will be needed when school is not in session. That's the financial side of things. And with the amount of advanced notice families have had to get childcare lined up - calendars published years in advance - only emergencies and snow days are not known ahead of time for planning.

Or they could remove the extra week of winter break like other school districts.

You’ll have to pry that two week winter break from my cold, dead hands. I can assure you that’s not going to happen.

It should happen!!

[Anonymous]

Both the 2026-27 and 2027-28 calendars look fine to me. But that’s because they don’t include 3 hour early releases yet. It’s when those get peppered in, especially in the winter months when delays and closures are prevalent that the calendar goes to hell.

What’s worse, since they run the bus routes twice on those days, they split the county in half. 5 of the 8 early releases for us have coincided with already short weeks. That should be the first thing on the chopping block. It’s also equivalent to 3 school days, so if the instructional hours have been deemed expendable, why not remove those days off the end of the calendar before going after Federal holidays and religious/cultural observances?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both the 2026-27 and 2027-28 calendars look fine to me. But that’s because they don’t include 3 hour early releases yet. It’s when those get peppered in, especially in the winter months when delays and closures are prevalent that the calendar goes to hell.

What’s worse, since they run the bus routes twice on those days, they split the county in half. 5 of the 8 early releases for us have coincided with already short weeks. That should be the first thing on the chopping block. It’s also equivalent to 3 school days, so if the instructional hours have been deemed expendable, why not remove those days off the end of the calendar before going after Federal holidays and religious/cultural observances?

They don’t need to have those 3 hour early releases. They shouldn’t have had them this year and I’m not sure the justification for them when the original justification was additions teacher training needed for just one year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing: if they create more 5-day school weeks the school year will start later and/or end sooner. Either scenario is fine with me, but childcare will be needed when school is not in session. That's the financial side of things. And with the amount of advanced notice families have had to get childcare lined up - calendars published years in advance - only emergencies and snow days are not known ahead of time for planning.

Or they could remove the extra week of winter break like other school districts.

You’ll have to pry that two week winter break from my cold, dead hands. I can assure you that’s not going to happen.

Lol. +1. And honestly same with the extra days off throughout the year. Love the days off and I think many of you will begrudgingly agree once your kids are a little older and/or you plan more for these days ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is a waste of time on her part. The calendar debate happened three years ago.

She voted to approve the 2026-27 calendar BTW. She really has no business trying to take up everyone's time with a "framework" now.

Again, if they're serious or willing to reconsider both # of religious observance days AND # of full/partial teacher workdays, I don't care about their past or have any desire to re-litigate.

I care about someone having courage to correct obvious deficiencies now and going forward...

But she doesn't have the courage or leadership to propose anything substantive. Her FB post is, at its core, just a compliant.

Yup. She says she’s “collaborating” and “drafting,” but doesn’t own anything - no specific deliverable, vote date, or measurable target. There are no concrete steps.

She also is not building the coalition that she will need. This kind of stunt just makes other school board members and FCPS leadership angry.

Classic low-commitment language. A statement of concern isn’t the same as leadership.

Fair enough - then her constituents should note that and run someone against her next election who will actually deliver tangible outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, love the non-5 day weeks. They are great. Summer is such a pain to plan, and we (and most of our friends) much prefer a day here and there, rather than additional weeks in the summer.

But they are not great for consistent instruction. You know, the purpose of schools.

Exactly. How can children learn with all these break and inconsistencies! My kid just had an early release after a 4 day weekend. IT was a joke. Kids thought it was a joke. They forget what they were taught 5 days ago.

And next year when there are no snow days people will be pulling their kids out for skiiing breaks. This isn’t really the calendar it is the calendar with snow days people are reacting to. You all are kind of short sighted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:There is no ~180 day school calendar that is "good" or "right" across all populations.

5-day weeks mean longer breaks. Longer breaks mean learning loss, particularly a longer summer break. Those longer breaks also require expensive childcare - moreso when you don't have college students in town to staff cheap camps.

Shorter weeks mean less consistency, but for middle and HS students, provide a welcome break to catch up on work, or take a mental health day throughout the semester/year. In some cases, it is harder to find childcare for these one-off days - if you already have your child enrolled in before/after care, these days are often included in that or are available for an extra fee.

Snow days: regardless of the calendar there will be snow days if it snows or is icy. There will be more snow days than most parents think is reasonable if the weather on their street isn't too bad. The sooner you surrender to the fact that these snow days will happen, the happier you will be. And no, there is no way for FCPS to only close some schools/pyramids etc. or delay opening for MS and HS and not elementary schools.

The school calendar debate will continue forever because there is no right answer. For those of you with elementary school kids, hang in there - once they hit middle school, so many of the school calendar issues are no longer a big deal.

They could unleash early release days on elementary, so it's possible to treat different levels differently. how about middle and high school students get their extra time off, and elementary gets consistency they need.

Okay - draft that calendar.

In all seriousness, should take those reasonable suggestions and put it into school calendar format, post it on a RTO-like website and let everyone in the community click a button that says they prefer that suggested calendar to currently official one.

Key would be that community needs to not let perfect be the enemy of a better alternative. This SB counts on everyone having to have things exactly perfect the way they want - gives them cover to do nothing. Let's draft up reasonable "Community Alternative School Calendar" (the "CASC") and see what they do when few thousand FCPS families like it...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, love the non-5 day weeks. They are great. Summer is such a pain to plan, and we (and most of our friends) much prefer a day here and there, rather than additional weeks in the summer.

You are a 2-parent working household with kids in early elementary with that take?

Where did they say any of that in their post?