Reply to 2023 - 2024 school calendar

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think all these calendars and the multitude of religious days off is ridiculous. I don't know why we have to start 2 weeks before Labor Day because the religious camps insist on having their religion dictate the school calendars. If you must celebrate YK or RH, go to a Jewish school. Diwali or Bohdi Day? I guess go to an Indian school, or learn to adapt. And now we have Eid and Ramadan off?

Let's see how many more groups we can accommodate so that we start in July and have 2 days off each week. This wokeness is out of control.

And you religious folk need to stop forcing your religious observances on the rest of us. [/quote]

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This is an appalling attitude.  Even if you don’t think religious holidays should result in school closures, telling minoritized groups to go elsewhere is disgusting.   Opinions differ greatly and there is no calendar that will make everyone happy.  It’s okay to disagree and debate, but maybe try to be a little more respectful in your discourse. [/quote]

Absolutely not. If religious groups insist on pushing their religious observances on us, I will insist that they go elsewhere. Can you for one second image that we were shutting school for white Mormons or Evangelicals? The tone on this board would be incredibly different. But for some reason, we're fine with inserting religion back into school - even when we've worked so hard to separate public sector from it - provided its minority groups. It's hypocritical, and I'm calling the left out on it. Get rid of the religious days, and stick to fed calendar only. You need a religious accommodation? You'll get an excused absence, or you can find a religiously based schools like most of the Catholics that I know. [/quote]

We have a two week Christmas break and spring break tied to Easter!  Sure we don’t call it Christmas break or Easter break but that’s what it is. Otherwise winter break could be at the end of quarter in January and spring break would be at the end of third quarter. I’m with the atheist PP who wants no religious holidays at all but it’s really rich for Christians to take the longest breaks tied to their holidays and deny others the right to their holiday.[/quote]

Can you please name one other school district, not private school, a school district that doesn’t give off the time between Christmas and New Year’s. FCPS is not about to be the first. They would lose every single teacher they have.[/quote]

The point is the vitriolic PP used evangelicals and Mormons as examples of groups that aren’t getting special treatment but, hello, yes we get off for their holidays. I’m Jewish and [b]I actually agree about not having all of the days off for all the different religious holidays because it’s just too much[/b] (I do think there should bug be tests or major activities on those days) but the OP’s attitude was really offensive and derogatory about other peoples’ religious observances. [b]The Jewish holidays that were added to the calendar are the most important Jewish holidays[/b] of the year and this is a complicated issue for a lot of people that doesn’t mean we need to send our kids to a religious school because it’s something that’s been grappled with in the school calendar, and the same is true for the holidays of other major religions. [/quote]

This is the problem. You only want your group's days off because they are the "most important days". But each group wants their most important days, too. So how many days do we end up adding? Cumulatively, there are too many days of religious observance and we cannot accommodate them all. So they all should go. Federal holidays only. If you need a religious accommodation or calendar based on religious observances, there are private school options but we should not utilize the public school calendar to create a religious calendar - which is exactly what has been done here. That's not vitriolic. That's basic logic.[/quote]

I've posted this before but it bears repeating--in 2019 FCPS convened a group of faith leaders from across the county for a series of meetings that included looking at all the holidays. The group talked about how each holiday was observed and whether school impacted a student's ability to participate in the observance. Out of those meetings, and with the full support of all the faith leaders in the group, four holidays were recommended to become days off. That's where that list came from. While this group couldn't possible claim to have "official' powers to represent all members of their faith groups, they all felt comfortable with the list. So can we please stop this narrative that SOME groups are pushing their way to the front and leaving out other groups? Because it's simply not true and not how these holidays were selected. [/quote]

So why do faith leaders get to decide my non-religious kid's public school calendar?[/quote]

Exactly.  It is a public school calendar and religion should not influence.  Seperation.[/quote]

Ok, so let's play this out. There should then be school on 12/24, which is not a federal holiday, and a day off on 12/25, which is a federal holiday. Winter Break should come at the end of the second quarter, which is the most logical time to have it. And before anyone says, "most people celebrate Christmas so that's when winter break should be held," well, you all just said that religion should have no influence on the public school calendar. If you really believe that, you should have no issue with this plan. [/quote]

I love the way that PPs pretend they don't live in this country or understand the culture. Are you new here? Never been to the western world? The entire country shuts down the entire week of Christmas. For staffing and logistics purposes, it makes sense for fcps to shut down. Heck, my employer shut down the office and gave everyone a holiday Christmas - NYE week. Why? That's the culture we live in. Don't like it? Move, I guess. [/quote]

You can't have it both ways and claim that you truly believe that religion has no place in public education. What you are really saying is the majority religion DOES have a place in influencing public education and minority religions don't. And yes, that's how this country works right now. But own that, don't try to and feign outrage at religion inserting itself into things like calendar decisions because of separation of church and state and then, at the same time, mock the idea that Christianity should be held to the same standard as other religions in terms of influence. [/quote]

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