Reply to CALENDAR: O days and new material

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
The schoolboard formed a committee that spent months, perhaps even the past year, to come up with exactly that recommendation.  But then the school board completely ignored the committe's recommendation and came up with this crazy mess of zero days, most of which are not celebrated as a major holiday for any of the fcps families.  The committee took input from faith and community leaders, as well as other things like demographics and attendance.

Sorry, but you people REALLY need to start paying attention to the school board meetings and agenda.
[/quote]
THIS

We could have had just four days off based on a year of thoughtful planning from an interfaith group of stakeholders that [i]the SB tasked with calendar planning[/i]. Instead, the Open Fairfax people were like "No, put our kids in school all the days!" and the SB slapped together this O day disaster within a month or so.

Also, side note: the O is for Religious Observance days (O for Observance). It's not a zero. They're not "zero days."[/quote]

Except that’s not what happened.  FCPS did not consult their lawyer, and when they did just before adopting the calendar, heir legal counsel told them the 4 days off was illegal, because there was no showing of secular need.  And the lawyer was right. Of course, FCPS being FCPS, they then pushed through something even less legal with no notice to the community.

FCPS is a public school. Establishment clause and Lemon Test say we should not get religious holidays off (or hold school and not teach) without a secular need. There is a secular need for Christmas— too many a sense to run school. They discovered there was no secular need for the 4 holidays because there was a bump in absences, looking at historical data.

I have my issues with Open FCPS. But, this isn’t on Open FCPS. It’s on the SB for not bringing in their lawyer much earlier in the process. [/quote]
Except it is. Here is an article citing the need to adjust the calendar for pandemic loss: https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2021/02/fairfax-co-school-board-considers-new-calendar-to-address-learning-loss-from-pandemic/

And you can see from the March 18, 2021 SB minutes when they were supposed to vote one calendars A, B, or the slapped together C after community participation that the SB suddenly has a long list of totally unrelated concerns. Open FCPS MO is to throw out everything they can think of and hope something sticks. SB members used the pandemic loss Open FCPS argument to delay the calendar vote and then found a different argument to justify changing the calendar options.

This is all despite the fact that absenteeism data doesn't account for kids and teachers who don't feel they can miss on their holidays. Those families lost out on the faith equity [i]the SB created a task force to address in the first place[/i] and a second time through these ridiculous O days, which do not address the ongoing problem of teachers scheduling things they're not supposed to (which was a rule, though less stringent) before.[/quote]

Except nothing that you linked or referenced backs up your claim[/quote]
From the WTOP article: "Calendar C does away with the new days off, in favor of more instructional days to help students make up for pandemic-related learning loss."

And the SB minutes I cited do, in fact, include a long list of unrelated "reasons" not to move forward with the calendars that addressed religious equity, while ignoring the original need for equity that led to the creation of the task force and calendars A and B in the first place. The SB, bungling reopening already and facing constant Open FCPS pressure plus antagonism from anti-religious families, caved with a plan that pleased no one.

What part of that do you think doesn't support my point?[/quote]

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