Reply to Is the 22-23 Calendar designed to be an f-u to parents?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So.......what exactly are we mad about?

1. Less instructional days? There are 180 days of school on this calendar. I don't know why some PPs are saying the SY23 calendar has fewer instructional days. 
2. Not grouping religious holidays "together"? Religious holidays can't just "be moved". That's as ridiculous as saying FCPS will move Christmas to (insert arbitrary date here). Religious holidays are when they are. I guess the bottom line here is either we recognize religious holidays in some way or we don't. To say that XYZ holiday is "worthy" of an O designation or a school holiday, while ABC holiday is not (regardless of the # of celebrants) pits groups against each other. 
3. Too many professional days? The community says they want a world-class school system. To have that, you must continually train & develop your teaching force. On a regular school day, teachers are "live" and "on" in front of kids 3/4 of the day, and the other 1/4, they are eating their lunch and meeting with their teams to plan, or prepping materials for future lessons, or attending conferences, IEP meetings, duties, etc. Teachers need time to develop their craft (some PW days) and do report cards (other PW days). I include that information for people who question why said training and work doesn't happen during the school day (or for some posters, maybe skip them entirely?). For those who might suggest "after school" or "on weekends"--well, for the after school piece, then they would need to extend the contracted school day. That proposal could conflict with offering after school opportunities for kids. As for doing PWs on Saturdays or Sundays, that would mean a 6 day work week, an enormous culture shift, and is a tough sell. Schedule PWs in the summer? Professional development opportunities do exist in the summer, but going 10 months without real opportunities (read: time) for training and learning and the housekeeping work of being a teacher is a long stretch. 
4. Too many O days and no new content? Teachers will now be permitted to introduce new content on those days. They cannot schedule tests and schools cannot host events on those days. Some of the O days have now been converted to actual holidays. 
5. School year too long? There are only 365 days in the year, and we have to schedule 180 days. The parameters are finite.

The one thing I do agree with in this thread is the length of SY23's winter break--it's 11 weekdays out of school. That seems excessive. I think they could have done maybe 7 or 8 and gotten out 3-4 days earlier in June. I agree that having the whole week before Christmas off is weird (I thought that this year too).

Personally, I'd love to see what a year-round calendar would look like for FCPS. I know it was sort of attempted in the mid-2000s (Falls Church HS comes to mind), but I don't recall exactly why it was scrapped. [/quote]

Since you asked - I am annoyed about starting early and ending late.
I'm annoyed about too many off days off here and there and too few full weeks of M-F school.[/quote]

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