Fcps 2026 calendar, January

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just counted 38 holidays for next year. My childhood district has 22, 15 of which are Christmas break and spring break.

I just looked at mine from the Midwest. 19 days. But people would hate the calendar here. No Wednesday before Thanksgiving. School is in session Dec 22/23 and they come back for one day on Friday Jan 2nd. No Spring Break, just a couple of teacher days in March and Good Friday. 9 “early out” days.

[Anonymous]

I guessing 7 snow days this January

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Ok. Thank you.

I am glad i am misreading the O days.

Why is next year's calendar so long?

Because our school board is run by idiots.

The only thing FCPS is good at is keeping kids out of school.

Sigh. You get 180 days. They are not keeping kids out of school any more or less than years past.

Oh, so I'm imagining that school starts earlier than ever and ends later than ever?

No wonder the FCPS budget keeps going up.

This year, we started August 19th and are ending June 11th. There were 180 instructional days over 42.5 weeks.
Next year, we will start August 18th and end June 17th. There will 180 instructional days over 43.5 weeks.

So somewhere, yes, there are 5 more days off in the middle of the school year than there were this year. I counted and there were 6 Teacher workday/Staff Development days this year and there will be 9 next year (not counting the days before and after school ends), so that's three of them. The remaining two must be holidays.

I just laugh so hard at all the white christians complaining about TWO extra holidays this year when they literally get three weeks off due to theirs.

*queue the lady who goes on and on about this is the only time for international families to visit their families overseas. My family always went in the summer. Yes, to India. Yes, during monsoon season.

Umm, there were no explicitly Christian holidays on the calendar until they added the unnecessary Orthodox holidays.

You may be referring to Spring and Winter Breaks, but as you can easily see, these are not Christian holidays.

Try harder.

This is such a stupid argument. The ONLY reason we have that particular two weeks off in Dec/January rather than at the end of the Quarter is because of Christmas and New Year's. You know it, I know it, we all know it. If we were having a true winter break, it would be at the end of the quarter in January.

I can make an even better connection for spring break. A few years ago, FCPS sent out a survey that literally asked parents and teachers if they wanted spring break tied to Easter. The majority of respondents apparently said yes, so therefore spring break is always going to be tied to easter and is going flip around between March and April. A lot of school systems don't do this, they pick the last week of March or the first week of April or the week after Quarter end EVERY YEAR for their spring break. But FCPS ties it to Easter. It is not quit literally an easter break, but it is an Easter Break. Again, everyone knows it, it was literally in a survey. FCPS will fully admit it.

Just because your religious holidays aren't in the name doesn't mean those breaks are not tied to the religious holidays. Stop being outraged at other religions getting holidays off when you're getting yours off, too.

You are missing a crucial detail.

FCPS moved spring break to the end of the quarter.

None of the other school systems did this.

Many of our teachers and support staff live in other counties.

FCPS was out one week and the rest of the area was out Easter week.

FCPS employees ran into significant childcare issues due to FCPS spring break not aligned to the rest of the area.

Teachers and staff wanted spring break tied to other districts, which happens to be Easter week. They voted in that survey too.

No matter though. If the vast majority wanted spring break tied to Easter, then that is a cultural choice based on when spring break traditionally occurs in northern Virginia, not a religious decision, because:

A) Holy Week is a time of reflection, worship and sacrifice for practicing Christians, not a party on the beach and fly to Disney week. Practicing Christians want spring break separated from Holy Week, just like the Catholic schools do. If spring break was determined based on Christian residents, it would either be the week after Easter, or the end of the quarter, but certainly NOT Holy Week.

B) It was a large majority that voted to keep spring break with Easter. The percentage was larger than the actual percentage of religious, practicing Christians. Since the practicing Christians prefer spring break uncoupled from Holy Week, one can only assume that many of the votes to keep spring break on Holy Week came from non Christians and non practicing cultural Christians who just view Easter as Egg Hunt Bunny Day, not Our Lord has risen Day.

C) If FCPS was observing Easter as a religious holiday, they would have kids in school Holy Week, giving an early dismissal on Good Friday with Good Friday listed on the calendar. That would be an example of FCPS religiously obaerving Easter.



To your other point, try having school on Christmas Eve and Chrsitmas Day. You wouldn't have enough teachers or students to staff a full grade anywhere, except maube 1 or 2 places.

Christmas is the largest CULTURAL holiday in the USA and one of our first national holidays. It is sewn into the cultural fabric and history of our country. Celebrating Christmas is as American as celebrating the Fourth of July and part of our country's history from the beginning. It is religious, clearly. But it is also one of the most significant secular cultural celebrations in the USA and has been from the beginning of our nation.

To claim otherwise shows a gross misunderstanding of our nation's history and culture.

Look, I don't mind getting time off to travel at the end of the year, but let's not go crazy comparing Christmas with the 4th of July. Independence Day is an actual American holiday. Christmas, no matter how secular you make it, is still rooted in Christianity, and non-Christian Americans are no less American for not celebrating it.

You are grossly uneducated about American history.

Christmas is a national holiday in the United States. Christmas was one of the very first American national holidays, along with Thanksgiving, New Years Day and Independence Day. It has been a national holiday longer than anyone alive in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher and parent here. I actually think we should have more days off during the school year and a shorter summer break. Kids and teachers need time to schedule doctor’s appointments, decompress a bit, or even catch up with some work. Also, that darn summer slump!

No!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This ship has sailed parents.

The time to speak up was when it was up for discussion.

People spoke up passionately agsinst this year's calendar.

The school board did it anyway

[Anonymous]

it is not 180 days but a certain amount of hours now.

[Anonymous]

why on earth is memorial day a five day weekend????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why on earth is memorial day a five day weekend????

Eid Muslim holiday according to FCPS calendar. The 26 is a teacher workday.

[Anonymous]

Oh ffs!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After someone posted about june Eid, I pulled up next years 2025-2026 calendar.

We start really early, August 18, and go really, really, unusually late, June 17.

I started to look at all the dates and religious events that FCPS marked off next year. One month in particular caught my mind.

The kids return from winter break on Monday, January 5th. With New Years on a Thursday, that makes perfect sense.

BUT...

It appears that students only have one day of school (January 5th) then they are off for 2 Days for Epiphany? (January 6th and 7th) Because of this, there is only one full week of classes in January.

Am I looking at that correctly? That can't be right, can it? There are only 3 Orthodox churches in Fairfax County, so the population of students and staff in that religious tradition cannot be significant enough to cause even a blip of absences if all of them take off on a school day.

When FCPS moved to an August start, one of the main arguments for it was that the school year would end 2 weeks earlier in early June, shortly after SOLs and AP exams.

When the school board created a committee to look at giving days off for major religious holidays, the premise and task was to look at holidays where staff and student attendance was significantly impacted, and develop a list based explicitly on attendance issues. Looking at the FCPS population, an attendance metric would have added the muslim, Jewish and Hindu holdays currently added to the calendar, but that should have been it.

How did we end up with 2 days off for the aorthodox Christmas/Epiphany, with only 1 day of classes between it and winter break?

Am I reading the calendar correctly? Or am I misunderstanding the 2 different O day markings? Epiphany does not have the no activities marking. It has the full O.

https://www.fcps.edu/system/files/forms/2024-02/2025-2026-standard-school-year-calendar.pdf

I am an Orthodox Christian. We don't really do anything on those days. We celebrate on the 25th like most Christians and our kids go to school on those days in Jan and we are good with tests and homework and learning and normalcy.

Could have been worse! FCPS initially tried to include other holidays where kids traditionally stay in school and parents go to work, such as Dia de los Muertos. I got the sense that the Latino population didn't even request it as a day off but it was still made an O day for a time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it is not 180 days but a certain amount of hours now.

The calendar still has 180 school days. That's why we are starting in the middle of August and not getting out until June 18.

The state requirement is 180 days or 990 hours. Since the FCPS school day is longer than the state's requirement for a school day, we can use a bunch of school days for snow days and still meet the 990 hour minimum. So the 990 hour requirement only kicks in if we use snow days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher and parent here. I actually think we should have more days off during the school year and a shorter summer break. Kids and teachers need time to schedule doctor’s appointments, decompress a bit, or even catch up with some work. Also, that darn summer slump!

Totally agree!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher and parent here. I actually think we should have more days off during the school year and a shorter summer break. Kids and teachers need time to schedule doctor’s appointments, decompress a bit, or even catch up with some work. Also, that darn summer slump!

Totally agree!

Just wait, you obviously have little kids. When they get to HS the summer seems REALLY short if they are involved in anything that happens in the fall. Summer is basically over for us already. We had a couple of true summer weeks in June and that was it. They are full in preseason now, every day non mandatory (but mandatory) camps/clinics of some sort leading up to the first week in August where it becomes daily. School feels like it starts the first week in August with a big lead up to prepare in July that they have to participate in.

I can’t imagine how a shorter summer would be possible for the HS students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher and parent here. I actually think we should have more days off during the school year and a shorter summer break. Kids and teachers need time to schedule doctor’s appointments, decompress a bit, or even catch up with some work. Also, that darn summer slump!

Totally agree!

Just wait, you obviously have little kids. When they get to HS the summer seems REALLY short if they are involved in anything that happens in the fall. Summer is basically over for us already. We had a couple of true summer weeks in June and that was it. They are full in preseason now, every day non mandatory (but mandatory) camps/clinics of some sort leading up to the first week in August where it becomes daily. School feels like it starts the first week in August with a big lead up to prepare in July that they have to participate in.

I can’t imagine how a shorter summer would be possible for the HS students.

Actually, most of my children are in college. Sports, camps and clinics are your choice to over schedule yourself and your children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teacher and parent here. I actually think we should have more days off during the school year and a shorter summer break. Kids and teachers need time to schedule doctor’s appointments, decompress a bit, or even catch up with some work. Also, that darn summer slump!

Totally agree!

Nope.

High school students have a difficult enough time finding jobs and university programs that work with FCPS' late June ending date.

FCPS should end no later than tge first week of June as promised when we switched to a mid August start date.