Anonymous wrote:I support teachers unions and therefore support the current calendar. Teachers deserve more days off, in addition to all summer. Schools should shjt down for part of fall and spring too.

Teachers shouldn’t have to work at all! They should get to be off all the time. That is the only thing that makes sense.

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Anonymous wrote:We certainly had a better education system when we only recognized Christian holidays. Even the reprobates at NYSE and CME take off Good Friday.

Lots of Muslim countries if you prefer that vibe.

We don’t “recognize” Jewish holidays. We just have them off because there aren’t enough teachers to teach on those days.

This is completely untrue.

Fcps does not have a significant number of Jewish teachers or cafeteria staff.

I am Christian (and don't get any holidays off other than "winter" break). It would be completely wrong to celebrate multiple Muslim holidays and not celebrate the Jewish high holidays.

Winter break and spring break are both tied to Christian holidays, so it's disingenuous to say you don't get Christian holidays off in this calendar. You get 2 full weeks for Christmas and a week for Easter.

Anonymous wrote:My three kids are all in middle and hs, but isn’t there any childcare offered during out-of-school days at rec. centers or the usual afterschool programs?

The afterschool club at my school is full. And it also doesn't allow drop ins. So I could pay for it year round and only use it on random holidays. I don't believe it's open on religious holidays though?

I could register my kids for drop in days at the local rec center/karate place, but that's $125 application fee and then $75/100 a day per kid. (Depending on your income, this can be a struggle. Weren't there like 20 random days off and then lots of half days?)

Most of us don't need before or after care. DH and I stagger our schedules and don't have trouble on normal school days. Half days have been an issue and we've just been burning a lot of leave.

But childcare doesn't fix the issue of unpredictable scheduling and learning loss.

Anonymous wrote:I support teachers unions and therefore support the current calendar. Teachers deserve more days off, in addition to all summer. Schools should shjt down for part of fall and spring too.

These holidays are not extra paid days off, it just extends the calendar and eats into their summer.

I have a couple teacher friends who hate it and want more summer break back.

My three kids are all in middle and hs, but isn’t there any childcare offered during out-of-school days at rec. centers or the usual afterschool programs?

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Anonymous wrote:We certainly had a better education system when we only recognized Christian holidays. Even the reprobates at NYSE and CME take off Good Friday.

Lots of Muslim countries if you prefer that vibe.

We don’t “recognize” Jewish holidays. We just have them off because there aren’t enough teachers to teach on those days.

I believe that the actual issue was that schools noticed a large attendance issue around the Muslim holidays, including teachers and IAs being absent. The schools moved to figure out how to address that. Once they started the process to have the Muslim holidays as days off, due to attendance issues, other religions chimed in that you cannot give off a Muslim holiday without recognizing their holidays even though there had not been an attendance issue on the Jewish, Hundi, and Greek Orthodox holidays. It turned into an all or nothing scenario. But only one of the holidays actually had a real attendance issue tied to it.

There was no such data ever presented. Random days in the school year had higher absentee rates (both students and staff) than any of the newly added religious holidays.

Actually, yes, the data WAS presented. They communicated data from several years worth of religious holidays and the number of students (cant remember about staff) that were absent. They then ranked the holidays with the highest rate of absenteeism. That is the data that was considered when determining days off.

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Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

How about just all of the kids, special needs etc. Why should the ones you mentioned have priority?

Consistency is good for all kids.

Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

How about just all of the kids, special needs etc. Why should the ones you mentioned have priority?

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Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

You think you are, but have no research and the research that is out there says it doesn’t matter WHEN, but it does matter how many hours.

Show us that research. There is no research that says hours, no matter how incinsistently applied, is the same as a consistent schedule. You're misinterpreting research on alternative schedules.

I support teachers unions and therefore support the current calendar. Teachers deserve more days off, in addition to all summer. Schools should shjt down for part of fall and spring too.

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Anonymous wrote:In many places, spring break is not tied to Easter, even in the deep south.

I think parents here mostly want school closings tied to religious holidays so they can travel to be with family. In many places, that is really not so much a concern.

Even in the Catholic schools, spring break is not tied to Easter.

Yes they are here. Arlington diocese schools are on spring break this week and they had Good Friday off.

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Anonymous wrote:We certainly had a better education system when we only recognized Christian holidays. Even the reprobates at NYSE and CME take off Good Friday.

Lots of Muslim countries if you prefer that vibe.

We don’t “recognize” Jewish holidays. We just have them off because there aren’t enough teachers to teach on those days.

This is completely untrue.

Fcps does not have a significant number of Jewish teachers or cafeteria staff.

I am Christian (and don't get any holidays off other than "winter" break). It would be completely wrong to celebrate multiple Muslim holidays and not celebrate the Jewish high holidays.

We shouldn't be celebrating anyreligious holidays.

Agree!

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Anonymous wrote:Best way would be to remove Christmas and Easter. That would cause enough an uproar that all religious holidays would be examined.

Easter is conveniently positioned on a Sunday. You want kids to come to school on a Sunday? I would LOVE for spring break to not be tied to Easter, as would many families. Easter Monday is not a thing and can be removed.

This is where a unified Northern Virginia calendar would REALLY help with SACC care available on days off when they fall in the middle of the week. As someone who teaches in a different county, with kids in FCPS, I would absolutely take days off during FCPS’ longer breaks. Many others would do the same which is what sunk the idea in the first place.

FCPS and surrounding counties can make longer breaks at a set time, but they absolutely have to work together on this on or it won’t work. There is too much crossover in the area between counties for the workforce to make anything else work.

Common sense and cooperation would really help here.

Honestly, it’s untenable for FCPS to have a uniform schedule for its own district let alone to have to be in lock step with 4 or 5 other counties. If teachers want a schedule that matches that of their kids, they should prioritize working in the same school system their children attend.

As long as there are people like you say “Stick it to em”. I and many others will just take leave. And then you will say, “OMG those principals can’t ALLOW This! Larva’s (thanks autocorrect!) teacher thinks she can use vacation days like I do for spring break.” And it will just keep going…. Cause that is the way people argue.

Or you can search for some common sense solutions like spring break, winter break and fall break are in the same weeks for 5 counties in the area and they can move the other days around as they see fit.

I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that FCPS is already too big as a school system. Adding neighboring counties to the mix makes it even harder to manage. Northern Virginia is already aligned for Spring Break, so I interpreted the request as a uniform calendar of the same days off for all counties. I think that portion is untenable.

If we’re just unilaterally deciding which week we should all have Spring Break, then yes, it’s reasonable to try and pick the same week.

Anonymous wrote:No one is thinking about the low income and ESL students who need consistent support to make progress against their educational goals.

You think you are, but have no research and the research that is out there says it doesn’t matter WHEN, but it does matter how many hours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best way would be to remove Christmas and Easter. That would cause enough an uproar that all religious holidays would be examined.

Easter is conveniently positioned on a Sunday. You want kids to come to school on a Sunday? I would LOVE for spring break to not be tied to Easter, as would many families. Easter Monday is not a thing and can be removed.

This is where a unified Northern Virginia calendar would REALLY help with SACC care available on days off when they fall in the middle of the week. As someone who teaches in a different county, with kids in FCPS, I would absolutely take days off during FCPS’ longer breaks. Many others would do the same which is what sunk the idea in the first place.

FCPS and surrounding counties can make longer breaks at a set time, but they absolutely have to work together on this on or it won’t work. There is too much crossover in the area between counties for the workforce to make anything else work.

Common sense and cooperation would really help here.

Honestly, it’s untenable for FCPS to have a uniform schedule for its own district let alone to have to be in lock step with 4 or 5 other counties. If teachers want a schedule that matches that of their kids, they should prioritize working in the same school system their children attend.

As long as there are people like you say “Stick it to em”. I and many others will just take leave. And then you will say, “OMG those principals can’t ALLOW This! Larva’s (thanks autocorrect!) teacher thinks she can use vacation days like I do for spring break.” And it will just keep going…. Cause that is the way people argue.

Or you can search for some common sense solutions like spring break, winter break and fall break are in the same weeks for 5 counties in the area and they can move the other days around as they see fit.