Anonymous
08/16/2023 14:30
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Swim season and marching band are 9 weeks just on their own. NVSL is huge in this area. People want to go on vacation as a family. They need two weeks outside of swim and preseason high school activities to do so.
People are going to be like - swim is no reason to change the school calendar. Well guess what - there is no academic reason to change the school calendar either. The most academic reason anyone can come up with is AP tests & which affects such a small subset - I think it hardly justifies changing the calendar for 180,000. Those kids are the top of the top - they could study on their own before school starts if they really wanted to.
But summer recreational swim team does? I suspect there are a lot more AP students in school than summer swim team members. My neighborhood has an active swim team and I'm confident there are more AP students that live here.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 13:27
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
The academic reason is that there is learning loss when the summer vacation is too long, then time is wasted in the fall relearning.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Swim season and marching band are 9 weeks just on their own. NVSL is huge in this area. People want to go on vacation as a family. They need two weeks outside of swim and preseason high school activities to do so.
People are going to be like - swim is no reason to change the school calendar. Well guess what - there is no academic reason to change the school calendar either. The most academic reason anyone can come up with is AP tests & which affects such a small subset - I think it hardly justifies changing the calendar for 180,000. Those kids are the top of the top - they could study on their own before school starts if they really wanted to.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 13:00
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:Swim season and marching band are 9 weeks just on their own. NVSL is huge in this area. People want to go on vacation as a family. They need two weeks outside of swim and preseason high school activities to do so.
People are going to be like - swim is no reason to change the school calendar. Well guess what - there is no academic reason to change the school calendar either. The most academic reason anyone can come up with is AP tests & which affects such a small subset - I think it hardly justifies changing the calendar for 180,000. Those kids are the top of the top - they could study on their own before school starts if they really wanted to.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 12:52
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:Swim season and marching band are 9 weeks just on their own. NVSL is huge in this area. People want to go on vacation as a family. They need two weeks outside of swim and preseason high school activities to do so.
Choices have to be made. Here is the other side: sports camps start in June. When school got out in mid to late June, the options were quite limited for sports camps.
Someone is going to be affected in any case. And, swim practice already starts before school is out. Only the super swimmers go that late into the season.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 12:34
Subject: Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
I’m less annoyed that it starts early than the fact that it goes into mid/late June. But again it’s been decided for at least the next 3 years so venting and talking about the SB changing over doesn’t mean anything.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 12:32
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Swim season and marching band are 9 weeks just on their own. NVSL is huge in this area. People want to go on vacation as a family. They need two weeks outside of swim and preseason high school activities to do so.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 12:00
Subject: Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
6-8 weeks is idealAnonymous wrote:Arlington starts Aug 28 and ends about the same time we do. (I think we FCPS last Day is a Wednesday and Arlington is a Friday) So strange.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:August 21 is not early
How about August 19, when the start day for 2024-2025 will be (two Mondays before Labor Day)?
Even better.
Too bad FCPS can't figure out how to end no later than the first week of June.
Only 9 weeks of summer vacation as opposed to 10-11 normal years( except those COVID years!)
Anonymous
08/16/2023 11:35
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:There is absolutely no reason school should start any earlier than a week before Labor Day and go further than the week after Memorial Day. Too much instruction time is spent on irrelevant materials and the amount of holidays/workdays this year is insane. FCPS started after Labor Day and was over by mid-June for years on end then randomly started extending the school year to late June for no reason whatsoever around 2010/11.
The AP exams have always been administered in early May yet FCPS used to have no issue having above average scores and participation in said classes. Also, why do we let a private for-profit company hold us hostage on when we make our school year calendar?
The fact that everything in the latter half of May and beyond is basically just killing time (the amount of times my kids would come home from school in late May/early June and say they watched movies/completed dumb projects was insane).
This earlier start date would be fine if the school year ended by the Friday before Memorial Day at the absolute latest. Does anyone think school in June is useful or helpful?
"Summer slide" is a myth propagated by for-profit learning centers to scare parents into paying for their kid to do homework all summer and get yelled at. Vast majority of kids are settled in and learning up to speed by the second week of school.
The FCPS school board is run by the most incompetent people known to man, it's insane and indicative of how far Fairfax County has fallen from grace.
LOL. Someone is angry this morning. I agree though, my oldest graduated from Oakton in 2012 and the school years typically went from Labor Day to the second week of June. It worked well in my opinion and gave kids a full 2.5 months off. My DD's junior year at Oakton they randomly extended the school year to the end of June and I excused her from the last week of school and we went on a family vacation instead. I'll never forget making sure she wasn't missing anything important and multiple teachers telling me all she would miss would be a screening of some Disney movie during class.
FCPS loves having long school years and dumb holiday placements, its always been this way (my oldest entered FCPS in 1999!). It's just that the schedule has gotten really incompetent over the years to the point where I can't tolerate it anymore. So glad my youngest graduated in 2022. FCPS is flailing.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 11:28
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
There is absolutely no reason school should start any earlier than a week before Labor Day and go further than the week after Memorial Day. Too much instruction time is spent on irrelevant materials and the amount of holidays/workdays this year is insane. FCPS started after Labor Day and was over by mid-June for years on end then randomly started extending the school year to late June for no reason whatsoever around 2010/11.
The AP exams have always been administered in early May yet FCPS used to have no issue having above average scores and participation in said classes. Also, why do we let a private for-profit company hold us hostage on when we make our school year calendar?
The fact that everything in the latter half of May and beyond is basically just killing time (the amount of times my kids would come home from school in late May/early June and say they watched movies/completed dumb projects was insane).
This earlier start date would be fine if the school year ended by the Friday before Memorial Day at the absolute latest. Does anyone think school in June is useful or helpful?
"Summer slide" is a myth propagated by for-profit learning centers to scare parents into paying for their kid to do homework all summer and get yelled at. Vast majority of kids are settled in and learning up to speed by the second week of school.
The FCPS school board is run by the most incompetent people known to man, it's insane and indicative of how far Fairfax County has fallen from grace.
The AP exams have always been administered in early May yet FCPS used to have no issue having above average scores and participation in said classes. Also, why do we let a private for-profit company hold us hostage on when we make our school year calendar?
The fact that everything in the latter half of May and beyond is basically just killing time (the amount of times my kids would come home from school in late May/early June and say they watched movies/completed dumb projects was insane).
This earlier start date would be fine if the school year ended by the Friday before Memorial Day at the absolute latest. Does anyone think school in June is useful or helpful?
"Summer slide" is a myth propagated by for-profit learning centers to scare parents into paying for their kid to do homework all summer and get yelled at. Vast majority of kids are settled in and learning up to speed by the second week of school.
The FCPS school board is run by the most incompetent people known to man, it's insane and indicative of how far Fairfax County has fallen from grace.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 10:38
Subject: Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Arlington starts Aug 28 and ends about the same time we do. (I think we FCPS last Day is a Wednesday and Arlington is a Friday) So strange.Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:August 21 is not early
How about August 19, when the start day for 2024-2025 will be (two Mondays before Labor Day)?
Even better.
Too bad FCPS can't figure out how to end no later than the first week of June.
Only 9 weeks of summer vacation as opposed to 10-11 normal years( except those COVID years!)
Anonymous
08/16/2023 09:16
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:Remember- AP, SAT, ACT tests are administered regardless of the start date of school.
So it benefits the kids to start earlier.
School start date has no impact on SAT/ACT tests, and if plenty of time to cover a one semester college course over two semesters of high where more time is already given than most colleges course.
Starting in August and getting out later than the first week of a June should simply never happen. There is no exercise other than the inability of the school board and administration to act responsibly.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 09:12
Subject: Re:Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:Remember- AP, SAT, ACT tests are administered regardless of the start date of school.
So it benefits the kids to start earlier.
I would agree with this EXCEPT that now with all the days off throughout the school year kids are not benefitting from the early start. If anything there are now less instructional days before these tests and a ton of wasted time after them.....
Anonymous
08/16/2023 09:05
Subject: Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:August 21 is not early
How about August 19, when the start day for 2024-2025 will be (two Mondays before Labor Day)?
Even better.
Too bad FCPS can't figure out how to end no later than the first week of June.
Anonymous
08/16/2023 08:57
Subject: Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
Anonymous wrote:August 21 is not early
How about August 19, when the start day for 2024-2025 will be (two Mondays before Labor Day)?
Anonymous
08/16/2023 08:51
Subject: Explain ridiculously early 2023/24 start date?
August 21 is not early