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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The concerns about the calendar are not really about the pre-Labor day start.  Its all the random mid week days off.  I don't really care about starting before Labor day- allthough I find the reasoning a little disengenious- we were told (as was repeated on this thread) that it was to get more days in before testing etc.   Then for this year they added all the random days off so we start before labor day, but still go way into June and don't get the extra days.  
Yes- mid week Holidays are REALLY hard on working parents, and they are REALLY hard on kids who need continuity.   The School Board points at the rec center and says they are 'doing a great job' providing camps on those days but: 1) camps don't help with continuity and 2) those camps take less than 20 kids and filled quickly.   I fully support the Fairfax plan of no tests, etc on recognized holidays.  I can get behind random mid week holidays if there is attendance data to support it (Noonan is claiming there is now- but let's see it- it certainly hasn't been publicly produced).  But if we are going to prioritize these random holidays we need to stop taking off for Veteran's Day and Election day.  AND we need to shorten winter break to 1 week.   Those need to be tradeoffs- not in addition to.[/quote]

Could not agree more. To say we needed to start early because of equity concerns and then throw this garbage calendar out there, which is horrible for the families who are least able to take off days from work or work from home and whose kids most need continuity, shows that FCCPS doesn't really care about equity - they just want to LOOK like they care about equity. I have yet to see any data showing that a significant number of kids and staff were missing school on these new holidays.  I don't think we need to keep catering to Christian holidays either--I would be thrilled to untie Easter from Spring Break and to shorten Winter Break. I'd much prefer the approach Fairfax decided to take (and they are a district that clearly has a much more diverse population and many more kids/staff who celebrate a wide range of holidays).

I hope the candidates are prepared to talk about this and what they would do differently in the future. This calendar was clearly made for optics and not for reality. [/quote]

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