2023 - 2024 school calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a teacher, and I think it is stupid that we are tying spring break to Easter instead of tying spring break to the end of the quarter. Sigh...

But what’s even stupider is we could do both by just picking the week right after Easter instead of the one before.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really telling that they included Montgomery county as a 'surrounding jurisdiction' but did not include Falls Church City. I recognize that FCC is tiny- but it actually borders Fairfax and it adopted a much better calendar that did not include the additional religious holidays. It seems like they want to control the narrative that 'everyone' is including the holidays.

This was my exact first thought as well! Take a look at the plan for 2023-24. It’s so beautiful.

Very suspicious that it’s not even mentioned. I know the Falls Church City Calendar was discussed at length came up in at least one of the calendar focus groups. Someone at Gatehouse is intentionally trying to remove it from the discussion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t30_0em4B90tiPFpskQUiCNiNPBfxZKW/view

That calendar is awesome. I would love if FCPS was done by June 7th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really telling that they included Montgomery county as a 'surrounding jurisdiction' but did not include Falls Church City. I recognize that FCC is tiny- but it actually borders Fairfax and it adopted a much better calendar that did not include the additional religious holidays. It seems like they want to control the narrative that 'everyone' is including the holidays.

This was my exact first thought as well! Take a look at the plan for 2023-24. It’s so beautiful.

Very suspicious that it’s not even mentioned. I know the Falls Church City Calendar was discussed at length came up in at least one of the calendar focus groups. Someone at Gatehouse is intentionally trying to remove it from the discussion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t30_0em4B90tiPFpskQUiCNiNPBfxZKW/view

That calendar is awesome. I would love if FCPS was done by June 7th.

Falls Church also aligns the end of the quarter with Spring Break.

If the goal is High-quality teaching and learning experiences." then the end of the quarter needs to be aligned to Spring Break. It does not make sense to have students off for a week, back for four days, and then off for another "mini Spring Break" of three days off.

The open secret is that teaching is typically finished by the middle of April, and then the rest of the year is SOL review. I can see with this schedule that the pressure will be on to finish all instruction before Spring Break (i.e. by the third week of March) and then devote all of April and May to SOL review.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really telling that they included Montgomery county as a 'surrounding jurisdiction' but did not include Falls Church City. I recognize that FCC is tiny- but it actually borders Fairfax and it adopted a much better calendar that did not include the additional religious holidays. It seems like they want to control the narrative that 'everyone' is including the holidays.

This was my exact first thought as well! Take a look at the plan for 2023-24. It’s so beautiful.

Very suspicious that it’s not even mentioned. I know the Falls Church City Calendar was discussed at length came up in at least one of the calendar focus groups. Someone at Gatehouse is intentionally trying to remove it from the discussion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t30_0em4B90tiPFpskQUiCNiNPBfxZKW/view

That calendar is awesome. I would love if FCPS was done by June 7th.

+1
ES Teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really telling that they included Montgomery county as a 'surrounding jurisdiction' but did not include Falls Church City. I recognize that FCC is tiny- but it actually borders Fairfax and it adopted a much better calendar that did not include the additional religious holidays. It seems like they want to control the narrative that 'everyone' is including the holidays.

+1
There is no chance we have many staff commuting from MoCo to work in FCPS.

Fcps should follow the Prince William County Schools calendar. It's sane, and many teachers live there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the 2024-25 school year, Spring Break is scheduled for the middle of April for ALL calendars. The other years it’s the same last week in March.

Why? I thought we were done linking Spring Break and Easter.

They unlinked it for one year and teachers made a huge fuss about it so they connected it again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really telling that they included Montgomery county as a 'surrounding jurisdiction' but did not include Falls Church City. I recognize that FCC is tiny- but it actually borders Fairfax and it adopted a much better calendar that did not include the additional religious holidays. It seems like they want to control the narrative that 'everyone' is including the holidays.

This was my exact first thought as well! Take a look at the plan for 2023-24. It’s so beautiful.

Very suspicious that it’s not even mentioned. I know the Falls Church City Calendar was discussed at length came up in at least one of the calendar focus groups. Someone at Gatehouse is intentionally trying to remove it from the discussion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t30_0em4B90tiPFpskQUiCNiNPBfxZKW/view

That calendar is awesome. I would love if FCPS was done by June 7th.

+1

Wow. That is the perfect calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it really telling that they included Montgomery county as a 'surrounding jurisdiction' but did not include Falls Church City. I recognize that FCC is tiny- but it actually borders Fairfax and it adopted a much better calendar that did not include the additional religious holidays. It seems like they want to control the narrative that 'everyone' is including the holidays.

+1
There is no chance we have many staff commuting from MoCo to work in FCPS.

Fcps should follow the Prince William County Schools calendar. It's sane, and many teachers live there.

Ooops...never mind. I thought they got out by Jun 7th...but they don't.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Fccps has a really good calendar. They focused on what was good for instruction and would meet the needs of students. The school board in fcc is made up of parents, not politicians. It makes a difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the options suck but esp the one that goes way late into June. No way!

Look at the calendar. It doesn’t actually go to the end of June for students. The last week is a fake week with Monday AND Wednesday off. Students will be done by June 14th.

It does screw over teachers who work over the summer. It pushes out their last day of work by 6 days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The survey results are pretty straightforward. People like the longer Winter and Spring Breaks and are willing to go later in the year.

However, if new days off are added, everyone would like to swap with a current day off.

The teachers and students would be ok with asynchronous days, but not the parents.

I'm not really sure why we're asking the students anything - of course they want as many days off as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's also so stupid to give off veteran's day because it's frequently the same week as Election Day (like this year) and the kids have a stupid three day week.

Arlington, Prince William, and Montgomery all observe Veterans Day. Interestingly, Loudoun doesn’t, but they are observing Diwali on a Monday while the rest don’t observe when it falls on a weekend.

But I would think Loudounujelu operationally actually NEEDS Diwali off given what a big amount of Indian families they have now. Which is not the case % wise in the other counties (nor I are the other religious holidays operationally needed)

The thing is...Indian families wouldn't be taking Diwali off if it was not a holiday. We value education and are happy to celebrate on the weekend. It's not a fast day or anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the options suck but esp the one that goes way late into June. No way!

Look at the calendar. It doesn’t actually go to the end of June for students. The last week is a fake week with Monday AND Wednesday off. Students will be done by June 14th.

It does screw over teachers who work over the summer. It pushes out their last day of work by 6 days.

I will quit. 100%. I’m already getting fed up, and they keep adding days. One of the benefits of teaching is having that break during the summer, and if they keep adding on days to each end of it, I’m done. I’ve had enough of the meetings and the professional development. Enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What in the world were they think with the last week of school on the green calendar??? 2 days off in a 4 day week of class time the last week of school? No one will be there. It's too bad, cause I'd like to start only 1 week before labor day. That also has a full week for spring break, one week back to end 3rd quarter and then a 5.5 day weekend. Dumb.

It was included only to show you “can’t” start just 1 week before Labor Day.

How did we used to manage to start after labor day, have a 2 week winter break, a week spring break, and get out by june 20? Lets go back to that.

+1 Really miss being able to vacation at the end off August, too!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher on Team Orange here! We get *almost* 2 weeks off at Christmas, and I like starting as early as possible. I sure wish that they would have scheduled spring break one week later to match it with the end of the quarter.

It's absurd that they don't do this. I would much rather have a 7 day spring break to align with the end of the quarter than a week off, then a three day week back in which absolutely nothing will happen (and will older kids be studying for exams over spring break?)