Reply to The response to MoCo's calendar change shows why the FCPS religious holidays will never go away

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Reply to "The response to MoCo's calendar change shows why the FCPS religious holidays will never go away"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here is a straightforward calendar from a state/metropolitan area with a diverse population https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1756930407/mplsk12mnus/ge5clwh0shgydwvthwbs/SYCalendar-English-2026-27.pdf

Put it out there and if people don’t like it there is always private school, home school, or excused absences.

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The people who don’t like it will be the teachers/their advocates who will describe such a calendar as indecent conditions. Look at all the five-day weeks in school. [/quote]

I think it is terrible because the summer is waaaay too long. Do you really want 3 full months off? That is very bad for most kids.[/quote]

You are free to register your kid(s) for summer classes if you believe that to be needed. [/quote]

NP: I’m not worried about my own kids. I do plenty with them over the summer (as a teacher, I have time to do so!) I’m worried about my students who inevitably regress 3-6 months in ability after a summer of YouTube, requiring intense remediation on my end every fall. I’m worried about some of my children’s classmates who fall in the same category, who will need the teacher’s attention to catch up, limiting the focus my own child can get. I’m worried about the overall level of behaviors that are brutal every August/September as the TikTok/youtube/minecraft addiction goes through 8 hours of withdrawals.

Unless you can tell me every child has enriching summer experiences, a long summer isn’t beneficial to society as a whole.[/quote]

[b]It would be possible for the county to offer programming to families that qualify for the need. [/b]

This concern shouldn't be our guiding factor in calendars. We shouldn't have to cater to the lowest denominator. [/quote]

With what money? They already claim they can't fund what currently exists. There's no way more will be added.

There is zero academic value to a long summer, over 5-6 weeks. The reality is the only reason we have a long summer is the beach lobby (and to a much lesser extent, swim team families). It's not because it's better for the kids' learning.[/quote]

It’s better for the kids whose summers are spent getting all the things school isn’t providing but is critical to development like outdoor time and language and intensive enrichment. Don’t now start saying you care about the underprivileged kids when you don’t give a fork about them being left home alone on snow days or unfed on TW days. [/quote]

[b]My not underprivileged kid gets plenty of outdoor time all school year. [/b]But if he didn’t, wouldn’t spreading the outside time throughout the year be better than clustering it all into summer months only?

And I absolutely care about my students being left home alone on snow days and TWD! It’s why I stuff backpacks full of food to send home with kids any time there is snow in the forecast. It’s a lot easier to feed kids 3-5 days at a time than 2 months. A few summers ago I was part of a group of FCPS teachers that set up school sponsored lunch bbqs and brought food, jump ropes, and sidewalk chalk to the low income apartment complexes near my school. We had twice weekly hang outs to chat, play, eat together. The elementary teachers did story time and played games, the secondary teachers touched base with the teens and tried to play social worker and gather needed resources. I haven’t seen info about it lately though, so I assume budget ran out. It was hard to staff with volunteers, harder to fund (I think local churches covered the cost of meals). I think they replaced it with cafeteria meals at the school, but that requires kids to be able to leave and go get them.[/quote]

Great does your not-underprivileged kid also get lots of language immersion, international travel, single-subject advanced enrichment and sports? If they do please share the unicorn FCPS school they attend.

Instead of your “I sent home
Food!” point me to the links of the teachers collective bargaining unit advocating for schools to stay open to support all students not just a few. Backpacks of food do nothing to supervise children.[/quote]

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