Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax has more teacher workdays than most districts. Many other districts have teacher workdays on the specialized holidays vs having both. We used to have school on Veteran’s Day.

The last day of school could have been June 12 if they made Veteran’s Day a school day and got rid of 2 teacher workdays.

FCPS has 15 teacher workdays, which I agree is too many and a good way to shorten the year. But this is a public school system and we should be getting rid of religious holidays before federal holidays. The extra religious holidays that were instituted a few years ago have added a week to the calendar.

Except this area is really diverse. There are schools in the county that would have 20-30 percent of the kids out on EID. How much learning is happening on these days if that many kids are out. How many teachers are out?

I would much rather they swapped these holidays for Teacher Workdays so teachers can take off if needed but no sub is needed.

For example, if the Jewish New Year is a teacher work day, make Columbus Day a school day. The days are now swapped.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's normal to start school before Labor Day. Only ~16% of school districts in the country start after Labor Day.

You are incorrect.

Most states start school in August.

Exactly.



Almost all if not all of those schools starting in August are finished by Memorial Day.

And if they do happen to start after Labor Day they are done before the second week of June.

Sept 2-June 4 is one example I know of, yet nobody there complains about summer slide.

New Yorker here. Always started after Labor Day and ended mid/late June. Last day of school was usually June 24-26.

New York is one of the rare excrptions.

FCPS teachers go back at least a full week before students, most of the time taken up by repetitive trainings and staff meetings rather than planning lessons and connections with students. As one example, we have required online course annually about reporting child abuse, plus a required in person training with the same information.

Testing is also a huge problem in the school calendar. For example this year we'll use at least 6 instructional days of English classes for iReady testing alone...just to get benchmarks of where the kids are (or aren't), while HOURS of actually teaching them so they can improve are gone. It's insane.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax has more teacher workdays than most districts. Many other districts have teacher workdays on the specialized holidays vs having both. We used to have school on Veteran’s Day.

The last day of school could have been June 12 if they made Veteran’s Day a school day and got rid of 2 teacher workdays.

FCPS has 15 teacher workdays, which I agree is too many and a good way to shorten the year. But this is a public school system and we should be getting rid of religious holidays before federal holidays. The extra religious holidays that were instituted a few years ago have added a week to the calendar.

FCPS has 39 days off this year.

Loudon has 34

Arlington has 32

NYC has 32, but they start later and end much later.

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax has more teacher workdays than most districts. Many other districts have teacher workdays on the specialized holidays vs having both. We used to have school on Veteran’s Day.

The last day of school could have been June 12 if they made Veteran’s Day a school day and got rid of 2 teacher workdays.

FCPS has 15 teacher workdays, which I agree is too many and a good way to shorten the year. But this is a public school system and we should be getting rid of religious holidays before federal holidays. The extra religious holidays that were instituted a few years ago have added a week to the calendar.

Fairfax has more teacher workdays than most districts. Many other districts have teacher workdays on the specialized holidays vs having both. We used to have school on Veteran’s Day.

The last day of school could have been June 12 if they made Veteran’s Day a school day and got rid of 2 teacher workdays.

Anonymous wrote:We always vacationed the last week of summer and would get home on Sunday of Labor Day weekend. It was significantly cheaper and it was a fun way to end the summer. Anyways, our oldest came home for dinner last night and we were reminiscing about our summer vacations. He graduated from high school in 2018. He said the only year he started before Labor Day was his senior year - fall of 2017.

I know, me too. I fought FCCPS on this hard. They claimed it was an equity issue. Poor kids needed more time before IB exams in May. Like 8 days more? Such BS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's normal to start school before Labor Day. Only ~16% of school districts in the country start after Labor Day.

You are incorrect.

Most states start school in August.

Exactly.



Almost all if not all of those schools starting in August are finished by Memorial Day.

And if they do happen to start after Labor Day they are done before the second week of June.

Sept 2-June 4 is one example I know of, yet nobody there complains about summer slide.

New Yorker here. Always started after Labor Day and ended mid/late June. Last day of school was usually June 24-26.

The problem is that FCPS adds a ton of holidays and days off to the calender, making us go into mid-June, 3 weeks or more past when all the testing schedules end and overlapping with most university summer programs.[b]

[b]The August start should require FCPS ending Memorial Day weekend.

Each student should get 2 "free" days off for cultural and religious holidays, with the only religious holidays with no school being the ones where a large number (10%?? 15%??) Of students and teachers traditionally misding school.

Spring break should be tied to the end of the quarter.

Winter break should only go from 12/23-1/1, with school resuming on the 2nd. Getting off for Christmas is justified because of the sheer numbers of teachers and students who would miss that week, the federal offices and major businesses all closing or completely empty over that week, and the national holiday and cultural history of Christmas in the USA, not only as a religious holiday but also as a secular cultural holiday.

Yes, it's all these added days and the testing, testing and more testing. It's terrible. I agree with your point on the religious holidays - give 2-3 a year and most kids would be set.

We COULD have a two week Winter Break if we didn't have all these random days off. Take away five of the random days, wow - you've got a two week Winter Break.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's normal to start school before Labor Day. Only ~16% of school districts in the country start after Labor Day.

You are incorrect.

Most states start school in August.

Exactly.



Almost all if not all of those schools starting in August are finished by Memorial Day.

And if they do happen to start after Labor Day they are done before the second week of June.

Sept 2-June 4 is one example I know of, yet nobody there complains about summer slide.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia switched about 4 years ago or so. Maryland switched to starting before labor day after Governor Hogan's term ended.

Hard to believe, but before covid, most local school districts in and around DC started after Labor Day.

Starting in August is so much better for the students.

The problem is that FCPS adds a ton of holidays and days off to the calender, making us go into mid-June, 3 weeks or more past when all the testing schedules end and overlapping with most university summer programs.

The August start should require FCPS ending Memorial Day weekend.

Each student should get 2 "free" days off for cultural and religious holidays, with the only religious holidays with no school being the ones where a large number (10%?? 15%??) Of students and teachers traditionally misding school.

Spring break should be tied to the end of the quarter.

Winter break should only go from 12/23-1/1, with school resuming on the 2nd. Getting off for Christmas is justified because of the sheer numbers of teachers and students who would miss that week, the federal offices and major businesses all closing or completely empty over that week, and the national holiday and cultural history of Christmas in the USA, not only as a religious holiday but also as a secular cultural holiday.

They surveyed people a few years back and a two-week winter break was popular across all constituencies, even with the impact being a later school year end.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's normal to start school before Labor Day. Only ~16% of school districts in the country start after Labor Day.

You are incorrect.

Most states start school in August.

Exactly.



Almost all if not all of those schools starting in August are finished by Memorial Day.

Anonymous wrote:former teacher here. blame testing and NCLB. it created this monster.

NCLB was in place for what, 2 decades before FCPS switched to this ridiculous schedule adding a bunch of religious holidays to extend the year into June.

I mean, just look at the schedule for May 2026.

Memorial Day off (OK, National holiday)

Tuesday after Memorial day off (???)

Wednesday after Memorial day off for Eid, which might change to a different date off a few days prior (?!?!)

2 days of school

Graduations start the following Monday, June 1, along with class parties and a bunch of movies. High schoolers have no reason to attend school because most grades are already in, especially for AP classes, any classes that overlap with seniors, IB classes and DE classes. School learning for most high schoolers actually ends with AP classes.

2 weeks of school that does not include learning for everyone else. One of those weeks is half days for finals week.

Then the kids come back for 3 more days, June 15, 16 and 17, where they do absolutely nothing. There is no reason to attend those days at all.

What a waste of everyone's time, including teacher's time.

I prefer them starting earlier. So many summer activities start immediately after Memorial day, like summer swim team, yet our schools don't get out until mid June. August is too hot for travel anyways, they might as well go to school.

Anonymous wrote:former teacher here. blame testing and NCLB. it created this monster.

or snow days