Reply to How DO we get the calendar changed?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

What's wrong with the calendar?  It's good to have more days off to give both families and teachers a breather from the miserable daily grind.  As a parent, I don't understand why parents of older kids who do not need babysitting (I get it when parents need daycare) want more school days.

My other concern is teachers unavailability to timely grade tests/assignments and post for parental review as is.  Even with all the days dedicated to having teachers catch up on this work, they don't have ability to do this already, grades can be lagging weeks, which makes it difficult for the parents to assess when their child needs help.  There is already little to no communications between schools/teachers and parents when kids aren't doing well or fail before things get worse  (due to delayed posting of progress) that it's impossible to catch up or do anything.  So, no, I don't want more schools days, more assignments, more prolonged busy work for my kids and myself as a working parent. I want to also have more days for kids to catch up on assignments, on sleep, or to simply decompress, hang out with friends beyond organized activities, etc.

I get it that a lot of parents want longer or around-the-year school situation where kids are out of their hair daily, but this also heavily penalizes families who do not need this and don't want their kids to be punished for absences.

And for this whole thing with more days of school to work, we seriously need to have more teachers, fewer kids per class, to allow teacher to spend time to grade, assess who needs help, provide help to the kids who fail or underperform, provide extra challenges for kids who overachieve and are bored, etc. have ability to contact parents when needed, etc. [/quote]

You misunderstand. Many parents want kids in schools 5 days a week because all of these 3 or 4 day weeks extend the school year and make summer break shorter. [/quote]

Exactly. A longer summer provides opportunities for high achieving high school students to do the summer enrichment programs and still start practice for fall sports and have some downtime. A Tuesday at home in Chantilly is a waste compared to a week in New Haven.[/quote]

Ok, for the 1% the longer summer break is better.  For everyone else, there is significant learning loss over the summer.[/quote]

It’s way more than “the 1%”. Its every student with any value or interest outside the limits of FCPS offering. For example:

1. International students for whom the summer is the only opportunity to see family/immerse in language
2. Serious athletes especially in non-school programs like ballet and ice skating
3. Serious musicians doing summer conservatory programs
4. Families who send their kids to religiously affiliated camps — this is a big deal for a lot of Jewish families in the NE

And I don’t dispute that there may be learning loss. Parents can make a choice to send their kids to summer school if learning loss is their #1 concern. But for many, many Fairfax families, learning loss is an acceptable tradeoff to meet the needs that aren’t met in school . [/quote]

Those are wants vs needs[/quote]

There’s no “need” to be off on a random March Tuesday in order to limit families summer activities. Kids who need more school in the summer can sign up for summer school, but most kids don’t need it. [/quote]

Gosh, it must be hard to be you. All that free summer time and money to spend on your kids lessons, camps and vacations, yet you are still miserable because the world isn’t meeting your perceived “needs.”[/quote]

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