Long live Diwali!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're not in the minority. It's insane.

Anyone who approved this calendar should be fired.

Remove all religious holidays from the calendar.

I agree - let's start with Christmas and Easter!!!

I agree. It's insane that kids don't go to school that Sunday.

Anonymous wrote:You're not in the minority. It's insane.

Anyone who approved this calendar should be fired.

Remove all religious holidays from the calendar.

I agree - let's start with Christmas and Easter!!!

Anonymous wrote:Super funny - board agenda item to take Columbus Day off the holiday schedule and make a school day of native american programming while at the same board meeting approved Arab Appreciation month (April!). Absolute lunatics running FCPS.

The crazy thing is that Columbus Day was created to recognize recent immigrants from Italian and Catholic minorities, after a series of hate crimes against Italian Catholic immigrants, reaching a peak when a group of them were brutally attacked and lynched for being the wrong religion and skin color.

There is sooooo much irony in FCPS and other uneducated groups with zero historical perspective attacking Columbus Day, given its history.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Super funny - board agenda item to take Columbus Day off the holiday schedule and make a school day of native american programming while at the same board meeting approved Arab Appreciation month (April!). Absolute lunatics running FCPS.

They spend what seems like half their meetings honoring, appreciating, resolving, etc. What a waste of time.

So, is October going to be Italian Appreciation Month?

People forget why columbus day became a holiday, but its a showing of how once you get a large enough demographic group they push for acceptance

Anonymous wrote:Super funny - board agenda item to take Columbus Day off the holiday schedule and make a school day of native american programming while at the same board meeting approved Arab Appreciation month (April!). Absolute lunatics running FCPS.

They spend what seems like half their meetings honoring, appreciating, resolving, etc. What a waste of time.

So, is October going to be Italian Appreciation Month?

Super funny - board agenda item to take Columbus Day off the holiday schedule and make a school day of native american programming while at the same board meeting approved Arab Appreciation month (April!). Absolute lunatics running FCPS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There aren't good reproducible studies about any of this.

Good meaning a large sample size, geographically diverse, culturally diverse, economically diverse and with really good statistical controls.

Why aren't there studies on this??? Surely it can't be that hard to run the data. I know school admin aren't great at math, so maybe they could pair the EdD with some data scientists?

Why spend money on a study that is not needed?
A lot depends on how the study is designed, in any case.

I was a teacher. Kids who miss school generally do not do well. This is not rocket science.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all elementary parents want more school. Plenty of us want those days off. School is genuinely grueling for young kids and they need the recovery time. Not everyone sees school as free daycare.

Elementary school is not “grueling”, stop it, lazy bones

+1 And, neither is it "free day care."

K-2 felt like it was.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all elementary parents want more school. Plenty of us want those days off. School is genuinely grueling for young kids and they need the recovery time. Not everyone sees school as free daycare.

Elementary school is not “grueling”, stop it, lazy bones

+1 And, neither is it "free day care."

Really? I live in Arlington, and to hear the reasons we need to match FCPS schedule, it sounds like school is very much free daycare for teachers. Apparently we can’t say no to anyone seeking PTO for the day or implement any of the other systems the private sector uses to stay operational.

Anonymous wrote:There aren't good reproducible studies about any of this.

Good meaning a large sample size, geographically diverse, culturally diverse, economically diverse and with really good statistical controls.

Why aren't there studies on this??? Surely it can't be that hard to run the data. I know school admin aren't great at math, so maybe they could pair the EdD with some data scientists?

If they want to cut down on absenteeism, they should eliminate the half days. Many in our class just don't attend at all on half days. It's really hard to find care for only half a day, so instead they just send them to grandma for the full day. Or kids go to their parents' work for the full day instead. Obviously school isn't daycare, but when parents can't make school work, kids just don't go. I too have had similar struggled over late arrival days. One time I HAD to be at work at 8am (major meeting), so instead of my kid doing a 2 hour late arrival, they just spent the day with me at work.

The other side of absenteeism is middle class/UMC parents taking their kids overseas on long 2-4 week trips. You're unenrolled at 15 days, so they keep the trips to 14 school days off.

Anonymous wrote:There aren't good reproducible studies about any of this.

Good meaning a large sample size, geographically diverse, culturally diverse, economically diverse and with really good statistical controls.

We may not have studies, but there is common sense.

There's also ample data about chronic absenteeism and how it's had increased to the detriment of student learning. Inconsistent schedules are likely a big reason for that increase.

There aren't good reproducible studies about any of this.

Good meaning a large sample size, geographically diverse, culturally diverse, economically diverse and with really good statistical controls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all elementary parents want more school. Plenty of us want those days off. School is genuinely grueling for young kids and they need the recovery time. Not everyone sees school as free daycare.

Elementary school is not “grueling”, stop it, lazy bones

+1 And, neither is it "free day care."