Why would you even want the survey results? It’s not like the school board is going to change what they already decided. Plus the survey itself was garbage questions and useless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically they voted not to change anything except taking away Veterans Day as a holiday. Great job FCPS!

Veterans Day has been a school day for most of the recent past. And it was great because the kids actually learned about a veterans.

I don’t disagree with making it a school day again as it was in the past. I’m more just pointing out that they voted to change nothing else despite public outcry. If they keep all those religious holidays and the mandatory 2 weeks for winter break and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and 2 TW/SP days at the end of every quarter … it’s only going to be a matter of time before we get another bad calendar like there was this year. Next school year and I believe the one after that have the religious holidays mostly falling on weekends.

That has to be partly why they are doing this. The calendar gives them a break for a couple of years so they don't have to address the holiday problem right now.

I suspect they are doing this because their obvious attempt to manipulate the survey by deceitfully miving Christmas from the federal holidays to the religious holidays failed, with reponses so far overwhelmingly selecting to eliminate religious holidays and prioritizing 5 day weeks. So now they can just ignore the survey results and do the opposite of what people want.

Are the survey results subject to FOIA?

Survey results are a public record under Virginia FOIA, and there’s no exemption that lets them hold onto the data just because they don’t feel like sharing it. The only thing they can really redact is anything that identifies an individual student, so the aggregate numbers should be releasable.

It’s easy to file. Go to the FCPS website and search “VFOIA request” for the online form, or just email FOIA@fcps.edu. You don’t have to explain why you want it. You just have to describe what you’re asking for clearly. Something like “all results, summary reports, and aggregate data for the [survey name] sent to parents and students in [month], including any tabulations or summaries prepared from the responses.”

They have to respond within 5 working days, though they can take an extra 7 if they say they need it. If they try to withhold it, they have to cite the specific exemption in writing, and you can run that past the Virginia FOIA Advisory Council for free to see if it actually holds up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically they voted not to change anything except taking away Veterans Day as a holiday. Great job FCPS!

Veterans Day has been a school day for most of the recent past. And it was great because the kids actually learned about a veterans.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically they voted not to change anything except taking away Veterans Day as a holiday. Great job FCPS!

Veterans Day has been a school day for most of the recent past. And it was great because the kids actually learned about a veterans.

I don’t disagree with making it a school day again as it was in the past. I’m more just pointing out that they voted to change nothing else despite public outcry. If they keep all those religious holidays and the mandatory 2 weeks for winter break and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and 2 TW/SP days at the end of every quarter … it’s only going to be a matter of time before we get another bad calendar like there was this year. Next school year and I believe the one after that have the religious holidays mostly falling on weekends.

That has to be partly why they are doing this. The calendar gives them a break for a couple of years so they don't have to address the holiday problem right now.

I suspect they are doing this because their obvious attempt to manipulate the survey by deceitfully miving Christmas from the federal holidays to the religious holidays failed, with reponses so far overwhelmingly selecting to eliminate religious holidays and prioritizing 5 day weeks. So now they can just ignore the survey results and do the opposite of what people want.

Are the survey results subject to FOIA?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically they voted not to change anything except taking away Veterans Day as a holiday. Great job FCPS!

Veterans Day has been a school day for most of the recent past. And it was great because the kids actually learned about a veterans.

I don’t disagree with making it a school day again as it was in the past. I’m more just pointing out that they voted to change nothing else despite public outcry. If they keep all those religious holidays and the mandatory 2 weeks for winter break and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and 2 TW/SP days at the end of every quarter … it’s only going to be a matter of time before we get another bad calendar like there was this year. Next school year and I believe the one after that have the religious holidays mostly falling on weekends.

That has to be partly why they are doing this. The calendar gives them a break for a couple of years so they don't have to address the holiday problem right now.

I suspect they are doing this because their obvious attempt to manipulate the survey by deceitfully miving Christmas from the federal holidays to the religious holidays failed, with reponses so far overwhelmingly selecting to eliminate religious holidays and prioritizing 5 day weeks. So now they can just ignore the survey results and do the opposite of what people want.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes. They voted to end school before Juneteenth. It already was ending before June 19. They voted not to start 2 weeks before Labor Day. They have started exactly 2 weeks before Labor Day for the last couple of years, so no change there. They voted to keep 2 weeks winter break, thanksgiving and spring break. No changes. It preserves 6 religious holidays and observes all federal holidays except Veterans Day. So no changes there either.

It is mind blowing how useless they are! How can we stop them?

You must be new here. How is any of this "mind blowing"?

Assuming about 183,000 students and roughly 120,000 to 150,000 parent households, a 20% response rate would mean around 60,000 to 67,000 completed surveys total so far.

At 5 minutes each, that’s roughly 5,000 to 5,600 hours of parent and student time, which is a real hidden cost for something that the School Board is going to just ignore.

It's embarrassing.

The Fairfax County BOS must be shaking their heads at the stupidity. I have done private contract work on surveys. FCPS spent at least $20K on this survey, possibly as much as $100K. They had to do survey setup/testing, translations, communications, consent/privacy review, data cleaning, dashboards/reporting, and a share of the survey platform cost. You cannot send out even a sh!tty survey (which this frankly was) to 180,000 students and 150,000 parents by just pressing send.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which members voted to move this ahead?

Karl Frisch
Kyle McDaniel


They are the bottom of the barrel. They don't care what anyone has to say. It is infuriating.

I'd add Seema Dixit to the list. She is completely useless. Her comment "It provides [families] with the predictability that they have consistently asked for" is ironic given they didn't wait for the survey to close.

“I’m happy to support this revised policy, because I think it strikes the right balance,” said Seema Dixit, who represents Sully District on the board. “It provides family with the predictability that they have consistently asked for, including a two-week winter break, a full spring break, a designated Thanksgiving holiday, while still giving the division the flexibility it needs to build a strong instructional calendar.”

Yes, add her to the list. She's infuriating with her comments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which members voted to move this ahead?

Karl Frisch
Kyle McDaniel


They are the bottom of the barrel. They don't care what anyone has to say. It is infuriating.

I'd add Seema Dixit to the list. She is completely useless. Her comment "It provides [families] with the predictability that they have consistently asked for" is ironic given they didn't wait for the survey to close.

“I’m happy to support this revised policy, because I think it strikes the right balance,” said Seema Dixit, who represents Sully District on the board. “It provides family with the predictability that they have consistently asked for, including a two-week winter break, a full spring break, a designated Thanksgiving holiday, while still giving the division the flexibility it needs to build a strong instructional calendar.”

Anonymous wrote:This is what happens when there is one party (any party) rule.

+1. Republic don't function without 2 (possibly more, but in the US usually 2) functional parties.

Anonymous wrote:Some of you must still have younger kids if you thought they would do anything differently. Anyone with kids in HS predicted this, because it’s how it has always been.

Right? It's been this way at least since Braeburn, maybe Garza was superintendent.

And it will stay this way as long as the voting public rubber stamps the blue sample ballot and only the crazies pick who is ON the blue sample ballot. If either FCDC had more normal voters picking candidates or we had 2 functional parties and people legitimately picking between them, there would be consequences.

This is what happens when there is one party (any party) rule.

Some of you must still have younger kids if you thought they would do anything differently. Anyone with kids in HS predicted this, because it’s how it has always been.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing changes. They voted to end school before Juneteenth. It already was ending before June 19. They voted not to start 2 weeks before Labor Day. They have started exactly 2 weeks before Labor Day for the last couple of years, so no change there. They voted to keep 2 weeks winter break, thanksgiving and spring break. No changes. It preserves 6 religious holidays and observes all federal holidays except Veterans Day. So no changes there either.

It is mind blowing how useless they are! How can we stop them?