Our school days are two hours shorter than my nieces and nephews in the Midwest and South.

More and more teacher work days and local (Not VA mandated state-wide) holidays.

Seriously parents will complain about everything. There are not enough school days. There are too many school days. Etc.

The state changed the law to allow pre-Labor day start and nova schools added a number of religious holidays. So we start earlier and still finish late.

Anonymous wrote:LCPS doesn’t do early dismissals, but does have a lot of holidays not observed in, say, Florida or Colorado.

+1 I never got federal holidays or Easter Monday off working in Colorado. We also got a fall break, school year was 174 days though vs. 180. Much more contiguous calendar though.

LCPS doesn’t do early dismissals, but does have a lot of holidays not observed in, say, Florida or Colorado.

DC goes longer.

They probably don’t get Eid, Diwali, Jewish holidays, election days and a million grade prep days.

A lot of holidays. Snow days that we really don't need. And I agree our day is longer than many. It's like they're trying to meet both the hours and the days required? I don't know, but I really wish they could figure out a way to condense it, we get out SO late next year.

LCPS Last year Aug 25-June 8
LCPS This year Aug 24-June 14
LCPS Next year Aug 22-June 17
The year keeps getting longer.

A million days off

Lots more holidays here. I went to private school: we did not get off for any minor federal holidays, even though we were located in an area with lots of federal workers (not the DC metro). No memorial day, no veterans day, no Presidents day.

My kids have a lot of early release days. I grew up in Ohio and my mom was a public school teacher in a neighboring district for 30 years. We didn’t have Diwali, Roshashana, or Eid as holiday. We didn’t have the Monday after Easter or the Friday before Labor Day off. We certainly did not have 6-10 early release days. We had 2 days for conferences and 1 teach in-service day.

Lots of random days off (Federal holidays, religious holidays, etc)

For reference:

My kids in LCPS
First day: August 24
Last day: June 14

1. Nieces & nephews in Chesapeake, VA
First day: September 5
Last day: June 13

2. Niece & nephew in CA (private school)
First day: August 28
Last day: May 23

3. Nieces in CO (public schools)
First day: August 21
Last day: June 5

4. Nephew in FL (public)
First day: August 24
Last day: May 24

They all start within days of each other (except for Chesapeake) and yet our kids get out weeks later.

Also, it seems like our school days are longer. I don't have their exact start/end times, but I know my niece in CA was shocked to learn that her cousins (my kids) didn't get out of high school until 4:20 despite having a start time of only 1 hour later than they had (8:30 am to 2:45 pm).