Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 weeks at winter doesn't bother me. Its easy to get grandparents involved for child care and nice to have extra time off to be festive. I dont want to be at work so using school closures as a reason to take PTO is fine with me.

I wish summer break was longer. And I wish the religious holidays were gone.

So you want 2 weeks for your own holiday to "be festive," but don't want other religions to have ONE day for their holidays? Please sit with your hypocrisy for a minute.

At least half of those religious holidays were for religions that represent 2% or fewer FCPS students and staff.

So yes, the other 98.3% of FCPS students and teachers should be in school those days.

Pick a cut off that makes sense, such as 10% of the county. Any religion representing 10% or more of fcps can stay. Any religion representing less than 10% of FCPS gets an excused personal free day while everyone else attends school.

You just blew right past your hypocrisy. Shocking.

We live in a multicultural society and we should value that multiculturalism. Nobody is asking for every holiday off. That's what religious private schools are for. But public education is available to everyone and giving off a handful of holidays (that sometimes fall on weekends or in the summer and don't affect the school calendar at all) in order to support those families and allow them to participate as themselves in our society is worth it.

Limiting early release days and combining teacher work days with some of these holidays or with minor Federal holidays would be a better way to address the calendar problems.

Speaking of hypocrisy...why just a handful of holidays and who would get to decide which holidays were included? What about the families who celebrate the holidays that are not included?

I'm not sure why we would support some families and not others. By recognizing some holidays and not others, there will always be people left out. FPCS is a public school system. It's a fool's errand (and inappropriate) to hold the calendar hostage to some religious holidays when it's not possible to recognize all of them and there will always be people left out. Federal holidays only and excused absences.

The holidays that they chose were based on an interfaith committee of clergy recommending some holidays. Again, for people who want all of their holidays fully observed, religious private schools exist. But some of the most major holidays of other religions (with input from faith communities) is not hypocrisy. It's what equity looks like.

And your hypocrisy was insisting you need a full two weeks off to be "festive" while denying anyone else just one day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 weeks at winter doesn't bother me. Its easy to get grandparents involved for child care and nice to have extra time off to be festive. I dont want to be at work so using school closures as a reason to take PTO is fine with me.

I wish summer break was longer. And I wish the religious holidays were gone.

So you want 2 weeks for your own holiday to "be festive," but don't want other religions to have ONE day for their holidays? Please sit with your hypocrisy for a minute.

At least half of those religious holidays were for religions that represent 2% or fewer FCPS students and staff.

So yes, the other 98.3% of FCPS students and teachers should be in school those days.

Pick a cut off that makes sense, such as 10% of the county. Any religion representing 10% or more of fcps can stay. Any religion representing less than 10% of FCPS gets an excused personal free day while everyone else attends school.

I’m not interested in FCPS collecting data on our religion. Where do you suppose they find out the religion of their students to determine if they meet your 10% cutoff?

They had data on absentee rates for the various holidays before they gave all these days off so they know which ones are have higher attendance absences for staff and students. This isn’t hard. Unless the absences are impacting the school, they should have school. They can set the days so that there are no tests and no major projects due for kids whose families celebrate.

I had no issues moving the religious holidays to the bottom of my list, Christmas is going to be in the winter break and is a federal holiday, that is a huge red herring.

Anonymous wrote:The school board keep the religious holidays if that’s what people want and always be able to say it wasn’t “them” but the people. Or they want to prove that people don’t want them and the calendar needs an overhaul.

Regardless something needs to change. Take federal holidays away if people don’t want to lose the religious holidays. We don’t need Veterans Day, indigenous peoples day, MLK or Presidents’ Day off. That’s 4 days and with another day somewhere we could have gotten out this Wednesday instead!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 weeks at winter doesn't bother me. Its easy to get grandparents involved for child care and nice to have extra time off to be festive. I dont want to be at work so using school closures as a reason to take PTO is fine with me.

I wish summer break was longer. And I wish the religious holidays were gone.

So you want 2 weeks for your own holiday to "be festive," but don't want other religions to have ONE day for their holidays? Please sit with your hypocrisy for a minute.

At least half of those religious holidays were for religions that represent 2% or fewer FCPS students and staff.

So yes, the other 98.3% of FCPS students and teachers should be in school those days.

Pick a cut off that makes sense, such as 10% of the county. Any religion representing 10% or more of fcps can stay. Any religion representing less than 10% of FCPS gets an excused personal free day while everyone else attends school.

You just blew right past your hypocrisy. Shocking.

We live in a multicultural society and we should value that multiculturalism. Nobody is asking for every holiday off. That's what religious private schools are for. But public education is available to everyone and giving off a handful of holidays (that sometimes fall on weekends or in the summer and don't affect the school calendar at all) in order to support those families and allow them to participate as themselves in our society is worth it.

Limiting early release days and combining teacher work days with some of these holidays or with minor Federal holidays would be a better way to address the calendar problems.

Speaking of hypocrisy...why just a handful of holidays and who would get to decide which holidays were included? What about the families who celebrate the holidays that are not included?

I'm not sure why we would support some families and not others. By recognizing some holidays and not others, there will always be people left out. FPCS is a public school system. It's a fool's errand (and inappropriate) to hold the calendar hostage to some religious holidays when it's not possible to recognize all of them and there will always be people left out. Federal holidays only and excused absences.

The holidays that they chose were based on an interfaith committee of clergy recommending some holidays. Again, for people who want all of their holidays fully observed, religious private schools exist. But some of the most major holidays of other religions (with input from faith communities) is not hypocrisy. It's what equity looks like.

And your hypocrisy was insisting you need a full two weeks off to be "festive" while denying anyone else just one day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. Teacher work days on federal holidays works best for me since I'm already off. The other random days either require me to burn leave or pay $$$ for some camp. I hate it.

I’m a teacher. I want holidays, too. And no, I don’t get paid time off in the summer.

+1 these parents are nuts. It’s all about what’s best for them and their work schedule and no thought whatsoever as to what teachers need. I hope Reid continues to offer 4 day weeks. It really helps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. Teacher work days on federal holidays works best for me since I'm already off. The other random days either require me to burn leave or pay $$$ for some camp. I hate it.

I’m a teacher. I want holidays, too. And no, I don’t get paid time off in the summer.

+1 these parents are nuts. It’s all about what’s best for them and their work schedule and no thought whatsoever as to what teachers need. I hope Reid continues to offer 4 day weeks. It really helps.

Teacher here. We want more 5 day weeks. Kids need consistency. The calendar this year was awful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 weeks at winter doesn't bother me. Its easy to get grandparents involved for child care and nice to have extra time off to be festive. I dont want to be at work so using school closures as a reason to take PTO is fine with me.

I wish summer break was longer. And I wish the religious holidays were gone.

So you want 2 weeks for your own holiday to "be festive," but don't want other religions to have ONE day for their holidays? Please sit with your hypocrisy for a minute.

At least half of those religious holidays were for religions that represent 2% or fewer FCPS students and staff.

So yes, the other 98.3% of FCPS students and teachers should be in school those days.

Pick a cut off that makes sense, such as 10% of the county. Any religion representing 10% or more of fcps can stay. Any religion representing less than 10% of FCPS gets an excused personal free day while everyone else attends school.

You just blew right past your hypocrisy. Shocking.

We live in a multicultural society and we should value that multiculturalism. Nobody is asking for every holiday off. That's what religious private schools are for. But public education is available to everyone and giving off a handful of holidays (that sometimes fall on weekends or in the summer and don't affect the school calendar at all) in order to support those families and allow them to participate as themselves in our society is worth it.

Limiting early release days and combining teacher work days with some of these holidays or with minor Federal holidays would be a better way to address the calendar problems.

Speaking of hypocrisy...why just a handful of holidays and who would get to decide which holidays were included? What about the families who celebrate the holidays that are not included?

I'm not sure why we would support some families and not others. By recognizing some holidays and not others, there will always be people left out. FPCS is a public school system. It's a fool's errand (and inappropriate) to hold the calendar hostage to some religious holidays when it's not possible to recognize all of them and there will always be people left out. Federal holidays only and excused absences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. Teacher work days on federal holidays works best for me since I'm already off. The other random days either require me to burn leave or pay $$$ for some camp. I hate it.

I’m a teacher. I want holidays, too. And no, I don’t get paid time off in the summer.

+1 these parents are nuts. It’s all about what’s best for them and their work schedule and no thought whatsoever as to what teachers need. I hope Reid continues to offer 4 day weeks. It really helps.

Teacher here. We want more 5 day weeks. Kids need consistency. The calendar this year was awful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. Teacher work days on federal holidays works best for me since I'm already off. The other random days either require me to burn leave or pay $$$ for some camp. I hate it.

I’m a teacher. I want holidays, too. And no, I don’t get paid time off in the summer.

+1 these parents are nuts. It’s all about what’s best for them and their work schedule and no thought whatsoever as to what teachers need. I hope Reid continues to offer 4 day weeks. It really helps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. Teacher work days on federal holidays works best for me since I'm already off. The other random days either require me to burn leave or pay $$$ for some camp. I hate it.

I’m a teacher. I want holidays, too. And no, I don’t get paid time off in the summer.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed. Teacher work days on federal holidays works best for me since I'm already off. The other random days either require me to burn leave or pay $$$ for some camp. I hate it.

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a contract issue, it’s a pandering issue.

Snow days should become remote teacher workdays, if we don’t have enough snow days in a calendar TW days go to the summer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2 weeks at winter doesn't bother me. Its easy to get grandparents involved for child care and nice to have extra time off to be festive. I dont want to be at work so using school closures as a reason to take PTO is fine with me.

I wish summer break was longer. And I wish the religious holidays were gone.

So you want 2 weeks for your own holiday to "be festive," but don't want other religions to have ONE day for their holidays? Please sit with your hypocrisy for a minute.

At least half of those religious holidays were for religions that represent 2% or fewer FCPS students and staff.

So yes, the other 98.3% of FCPS students and teachers should be in school those days.

Pick a cut off that makes sense, such as 10% of the county. Any religion representing 10% or more of fcps can stay. Any religion representing less than 10% of FCPS gets an excused personal free day while everyone else attends school.

I’m not interested in FCPS collecting data on our religion. Where do you suppose they find out the religion of their students to determine if they meet your 10% cutoff?

Probably through absentee rates and staffing shortages. That’s why we’ll continue to have 2 week winter breaks. Too many families will pull their kids from school when there are only 2-3 days of school leading into a long break.