FCPS School Activities Canceled on Saturday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has a basketball game Saturday in the afternoon, we are expecting it to be cancelled. Such is life. It sucks but it is not the end of the world.

The Washington Post is projecting up to 5 inches in areas.

WTOP is calling for 1-3 inches with areas in Loudoun getting closer to 5 inches. Wind gusts will keep the temperatures below freezing.

https://wtop.com/weather-news/2024/02/dc-area-may-see-a-snowy-blustery-presidents-day-weekend/

The volunteers who run his league have been scrambling all season dealing with closures and reschedules and ref re-staffing and gyms unexpectedly locked etc in addition to all the regular work. It definitely does suck. Its honestly amazing anyone volunteers to run these leagues and deal with FCPS on top of parents.

PP who pointed to FCAC above. Those volunteers should be complaining to NCS and their sport counsel representative on NCS. The sport counsel representatives should bring it up at a meeting. FCPS has people at all those meetings. There are avenues to work this.

As a volunteer who works for a league (not winter), I empathize.

The FCAC has been working with SB and FCPS on this. They point fingers at the individual schools. The schools don't really support community use. For profit groups-or at least fake non profits like private AAU teams-- keep getting permits in our area and reducing the amount of gym space. If you don't give county financial aid, you aren't a non-profit and should be last on the list to get space.

As far as the individual schools, that's an issue. They should be required to support community use, especially given that the superintendent has been touting the benefits of sports for kids in her middle school athletics push.

The fake non-profits issue is hairer. Our league is literally too disorganized to send the applications for county financial aid in on time (wish I was joking), but we're a recognized non-profit and we have documentation to prove it. So I think the criteria would need to be broader than "does this league issue county aid."

So all the FARMs kids in your area can't participate in your league?

DP. We don't have county financial aid forms, but we do advertise financial aid. We just waive fees for anyone who applies without question. We're a rec league and we build in the assumption that we're waiving 10% of fees so it works.

Our league is about 30% scholarship kids. There's no way we could afford to just cover and waive their fees, although I wish the kids could play for free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will almost certainly close all day tomorrow, even though I agree a noon opening should be feasible.

Pray they don't close Sunday as well.

Capital Weather Gang now predicting 3-5” for Fairfax.

With how much certainty? Ugh. I hate snow.

[Anonymous]

tTomorow would've been a SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Any youth community org should be getting gym space ahead of AAU teams and adult leagues, I don't understand why the county is not prioritizing use correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They will almost certainly close all day tomorrow, even though I agree a noon opening should be feasible.

Pray they don't close Sunday as well.

Capital Weather Gang now predicting 3-5” for Fairfax.

THey've changed the forecast repeatedly. FIngers crossed that their next post is "Hey never mind!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any youth community org should be getting gym space ahead of AAU teams and adult leagues, I don't understand why the county is not prioritizing use correctly.

I wonder this all the time. Like - why do adult leagues get prime spaces for things?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has a basketball game Saturday in the afternoon, we are expecting it to be cancelled. Such is life. It sucks but it is not the end of the world.

The Washington Post is projecting up to 5 inches in areas.

WTOP is calling for 1-3 inches with areas in Loudoun getting closer to 5 inches. Wind gusts will keep the temperatures below freezing.

https://wtop.com/weather-news/2024/02/dc-area-may-see-a-snowy-blustery-presidents-day-weekend/

The volunteers who run his league have been scrambling all season dealing with closures and reschedules and ref re-staffing and gyms unexpectedly locked etc in addition to all the regular work. It definitely does suck. Its honestly amazing anyone volunteers to run these leagues and deal with FCPS on top of parents.

I appreciate the work that the volunteers do running the league and rescheduling games and the like. I say thank you when I see them, I thank the Coaches. I don't complain to the league about the missed games because it is not in their control. We are playing in a rec league, the volunteers don't need the grief they get from parents about just about anything. My initial statement stands, it sucks but it is not the end of the world. I don't see how pissing and moaning is going to change FCPSs policy or make the life of the volunteers easier.

[Anonymous]

There is still a 15% chance of less than 2 inches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any youth community org should be getting gym space ahead of AAU teams and adult leagues, I don't understand why the county is not prioritizing use correctly.

I wonder this all the time. Like - why do adult leagues get prime spaces for things?

They aren't supposed to but sometimes they have an in with that area's NCS scheduler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any youth community org should be getting gym space ahead of AAU teams and adult leagues, I don't understand why the county is not prioritizing use correctly.

We sign up to use school space for Scouts. You have an account that you can apply for. Once your account is approved, you can go online and register to use the space at the school. The schools review what people are asking for and can say yes or no. I am not sure if the gym space is assigned differently but we apply to use the cafateria space. Individual schools get back to us and say that we cannot use the space on a specific date for reason X or they may contacting us after approving the request to say that the school needs to space but the communication is coming from the school itself. This has been the case at 4 different ESs in FCPS.

Again, I don't know if the gym space is handled differently or not. You are charged if you use school space on the weekend but not during the school week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any youth community org should be getting gym space ahead of AAU teams and adult leagues, I don't understand why the county is not prioritizing use correctly.

We sign up to use school space for Scouts. You have an account that you can apply for. Once your account is approved, you can go online and register to use the space at the school. The schools review what people are asking for and can say yes or no. I am not sure if the gym space is assigned differently but we apply to use the cafateria space. Individual schools get back to us and say that we cannot use the space on a specific date for reason X or they may contacting us after approving the request to say that the school needs to space but the communication is coming from the school itself. This has been the case at 4 different ESs in FCPS.

Again, I don't know if the gym space is handled differently or not. You are charged if you use school space on the weekend but not during the school week.

Gym space is handled differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at FCBYL championship dates and the date that my kid's volleyball league gets gym space, I think there may be one week of wiggle room where gyms are open

They should just push the tournament back a week, take everything scheduled for tomorrow and put it on next Saturday, and use the weeknight space this week for some of the missing/unscheduled games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any youth community org should be getting gym space ahead of AAU teams and adult leagues, I don't understand why the county is not prioritizing use correctly.

We sign up to use school space for Scouts. You have an account that you can apply for. Once your account is approved, you can go online and register to use the space at the school. The schools review what people are asking for and can say yes or no. I am not sure if the gym space is assigned differently but we apply to use the cafateria space. Individual schools get back to us and say that we cannot use the space on a specific date for reason X or they may contacting us after approving the request to say that the school needs to space but the communication is coming from the school itself. This has been the case at 4 different ESs in FCPS.

Again, I don't know if the gym space is handled differently or not. You are charged if you use school space on the weekend but not during the school week.

This is apparently an ongoing issue for sorts too:

Issue mentioned:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/neighborhood-community-services/sites/neighborhood-community-services/files/Assets/Documents/Athletics/Athletics%20Council/Meeting%20Minutes/Meeting%20Minutes2023/September%2020%20FCAC%20Minutes.pdf

Meeting with Dr. Reid about it mentioned:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/neighborhood-community-services/sites/neighborhood-community-services/files/Assets/Documents/Athletics/Athletics%20Council/Meeting%20Minutes/Meeting%20Minutes2023/November%2015%20Minutes.pdf

Meetings with various FCPS personnel described:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/neighborhood-community-services/sites/neighborhood-community-services/files/Assets/Documents/athletics/athletics%20council/meeting%20minutes/meeting%20minutes2023/December%2020%20FCAC%20Minutes.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is still a 15% chance of less than 2 inches.

I used to be an optimist but FCPS turned me into a pessimist. They won't even hold out and see what happens. I bet they cancel by 6 pm tonight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS has a basketball game Saturday in the afternoon, we are expecting it to be cancelled. Such is life. It sucks but it is not the end of the world.

The Washington Post is projecting up to 5 inches in areas.

WTOP is calling for 1-3 inches with areas in Loudoun getting closer to 5 inches. Wind gusts will keep the temperatures below freezing.

https://wtop.com/weather-news/2024/02/dc-area-may-see-a-snowy-blustery-presidents-day-weekend/

The volunteers who run his league have been scrambling all season dealing with closures and reschedules and ref re-staffing and gyms unexpectedly locked etc in addition to all the regular work. It definitely does suck. Its honestly amazing anyone volunteers to run these leagues and deal with FCPS on top of parents.

The last weekend cancellation, we had several parents email our rec league asking if they would receive a partial refund of their registration fee if their game was not rescheduled. Like, they thought it was reasonable for our community league to process $8.00 refunds for every family if we couldn't reschedule. One of those same parents complained again when we rescheduled games for weeknights. We have no space!

Some random parent suggested your org individually refund hundreds of families $8.00 if they only got 7 games instead of 8?