Reply to Will voting out the school board make the school calendar sane again?

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Will voting out the school board make the school calendar sane again?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"longer" school year is made possible by lots of 4day weekends and days off for mental health, schoolwork, etc. and parents know years in advance for childcare. I truly don't see the reason for school board hatred, angst over this [/quote]

The hatred is because it’s disrespectful.

Whether it was intentional or not, you’re entirely wrong about “years in advance”. The early dismissals starting in ‘24 were announced weeks before they started. The new day of the week for this awful program was announced in May.  No one believes Reid or the board won’t make more changes to published calendars— fool us once, shame on you, fool us twice …

And so the hatred is because of the disrespect and sexism. FCPS’ casual assumption that women (its always women) couldn’t possibly have jobs so demanding that 39 days off PLUS early dismissals could possibly represent a hardship to the mothers they assume are home eating bonbons. And if they’re NOT sitting home surely they can fork out $1000 extra a month to cover childcare so teachers can “plan”. Meanwhile, no matter how long you know in advance no job is handing most workers 39 days off between September and June.

FCPS is going to need to answer to their constituents.  Board members know people are angry. [/quote]

Speak for your family yourself.  My husband is i take equal days off to support school days off.  Perhaps the casual sexism is in your own house.  Hate when people claim this, when it really speaks to your own household. 
(We also don't love taking all this random time off)[/quote]

The statistics, which are widely available me, say your family is an anomaly. FCPS knows it’s the women whose time and money they are freeloading on.  My husband's job comes with less annual leave than mine, and sure everyone would love if employers handed out 40 days (eight weeks!) of PTO from September to June but it doesn't happen. [/quote]

Yeah, no - most people get nowhere near 40 days.  Which is why my husband and I split childcare responsibilities and days off.   That's a marriage.[/quote]

And thats great for you— truly— but statistically insignificant. When FCPS sets this calendar they’re not saying oh well in an egalitarian marriage we’re only asking for 20 days off each person. They’ve got the data about hours of childcare work, and they’ve got the data about single parents, and they come to the conclusion that women can be out of the workplace to make sure teachers have “enough planning time”. That’s the assumption.

For as liberal as FCPS is, its a model that 100% assumes a SAHM, and hides behind disrespectful sound-bytes like “school isn’t childcare”  and “you had years to plan!” and my favorite “why don’t you want to spend time with your kids!?” to attempt to shame women out of advocating for better. I think in COVID it worked because it was paired with a message of public safety but schools and teachers got greedy about what they could ask for, parents had enough, and now even the school board says it has to change.

[/quote]

No, no, no.  
Work on your marriage and the split of duties if you are both working parents.  Just hate how everything becomes an equality debate. 
And yes, I hate the calendar also.  At least make some of the days off on Monday or Friday so we can plan some long weekends.  [/quote]

My marriage is as egalitarian in pickup/dropoff/days off as our workplaces allow. It doesn’t make the tiniest statistical difference, and I am not going to close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears and pretend FCPS’ decisions in this space aren’t deeply sexist. You can choose to believe they aren’t but thar is based on feelings and not data.[/quote]

In my house my husband cannot take the time off without risking his job. I need to work but my job has more flexibility, so I take most of the hit and it is driving me crazy and is driving a wedge between us. The poster who keeps saying "How can you not plan ahead? You have three years" is an idiot because we can't afford a nanny or sitter for these days. We would do camps, but there aren't a lot of options. And planning for ~20 extra random days off in addition to summer is actually exhausting and takes time that I am already hemorrhaging because of said random days off. This is undoubtedly chaos and anyone who doesn't think so must be on the school board or a stay at home parent or wealthy.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics