Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I just looked at the calendar and there appear to be only 20 weeks of the year with 5 full days of school. All other weeks have at least 1 day off / partial day. 20. Out of 52. For elementary I counted 30 days of no school DURING the school year.

Can no one see how this calendar is a huge burden to working parents? Most working people only have a few weeks of leave per year. The 6 weeks of no-school (interspersed between August - June) + 10 weeks for summer... That is a LOT of time to cover w/ alternate care arrangements.

Is it really that different from prior years? Although my kids are older now, I remember when they were younger, it seemed like they were always off from school. But we were ones who decided to have the kids so I always understood it was part of parenting that kind of sucked, but we just had to figure it out. I didn't think MY childcare difficulties were the fault of a school system.

I don't know -- I asked my mom to look at the calendar and even she thought the days off looked excessive. She didn't remember us having that much time off during the school year when we were kids. I seem to remember school always starting after labor day and ending 1st week of June. So a longer summer break. This seems like it would be easier for working parents to plan for and handle than these days smattered all across the year. With fewer families w/ SAHP, wouldn't it make sense to change the school year to make it easier for them?

Still sounds like a personal childcare issue, not a systemic shortcoming. I grossly underestimated the amount of childcare I would need when I had kids, as well as the number of changes I'd have to make even once childcare plans were in place, sometimes on the fly. A business trip out of town for my husband or me (sometimes both at the same time), a sick babysitter, a sick kid(s), bad weather, etc. -- all part of the joys and burdens of parenting school age children. And because each family's situation is different, a calendar that works well for one family might be burdensome to another. So I don't think it's at all a school system's job to take that into account when creating the calendar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I just looked at the calendar and there appear to be only 20 weeks of the year with 5 full days of school. All other weeks have at least 1 day off / partial day. 20. Out of 52. For elementary I counted 30 days of no school DURING the school year.

Can no one see how this calendar is a huge burden to working parents? Most working people only have a few weeks of leave per year. The 6 weeks of no-school (interspersed between August - June) + 10 weeks for summer... That is a LOT of time to cover w/ alternate care arrangements.

Is it really that different from prior years? Although my kids are older now, I remember when they were younger, it seemed like they were always off from school. But we were ones who decided to have the kids so I always understood it was part of parenting that kind of sucked, but we just had to figure it out. I didn't think MY childcare difficulties were the fault of a school system.

I don't know -- I asked my mom to look at the calendar and even she thought the days off looked excessive. She didn't remember us having that much time off during the school year when we were kids. I seem to remember school always starting after labor day and ending 1st week of June. So a longer summer break. This seems like it would be easier for working parents to plan for and handle than these days smattered all across the year. With fewer families w/ SAHP, wouldn't it make sense to change the school year to make it easier for them?

Anonymous wrote:So I just looked at the calendar and there appear to be only 20 weeks of the year with 5 full days of school. All other weeks have at least 1 day off / partial day. 20. Out of 52. For elementary I counted 30 days of no school DURING the school year.

Can no one see how this calendar is a huge burden to working parents? Most working people only have a few weeks of leave per year. The 6 weeks of no-school (interspersed between August - June) + 10 weeks for summer... That is a LOT of time to cover w/ alternate care arrangements.

Is it really that different from prior years? Although my kids are older now, I remember when they were younger, it seemed like they were always off from school. But we were ones who decided to have the kids so I always understood it was part of parenting that kind of sucked, but we just had to figure it out. I didn't think MY childcare difficulties were the fault of a school system.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe move the winter break to the first two weeks of January. It’d space out the long breaks better.

Instead of the week between Christmas and New Year's? That would be a hard no from me.

Yes - do it the two weeks after New Year's.

I don’t care about winter break at all. Lol. The whole thing can go.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe move the winter break to the first two weeks of January. It’d space out the long breaks better.

Instead of the week between Christmas and New Year's? That would be a hard no from me.

Yes - do it the two weeks after New Year's.

Anonymous wrote:Love the calendar. But, still looking forward to the parade of families complaining about their summer beach house reservations and the School Board’s bizarre toleration of it like last year. So self absorbed.

I mean I don't really care about starting earlier, except this year I did book already for the week of the school year lol. Oh well, we have plenty of time to re-rent. I just wish we had known last April when the school board promised to do the 21-22 schedule before the world shut down. All I care about is knowing in the spring!

I can’t find survey on APS site. Help?

Anonymous wrote:What about the P/T conferences February 24th/25th? That makes a 2 day week after President's day. I suggested moving the conferences to the 17th/18th for a long weekend instead.

Also, I understand the added holidays but really don't like starting August 23rd. I'd rather lose September 3rd, Indigenous People's Day, Veteran's Day and start the Holiday Break on the 22nd in order to start the year on August 30th.

And why does Spring Break always have to be tied to Easter?! I'd much prefer it the last week of March.

They used to tie some conferences to a holiday weekend but teachers got frustrated because so many families would go out of town and want to schedule their conference at a different time. So now, conferences don't get tagged on to a holiday weekend.

I'm glad to see they are adding other religious holidays, would prefer a shorter xmas break to get out earlier in June. But, really, I think they should stop surveying families about this. Just made a g-d- decision.

So I just looked at the calendar and there appear to be only 20 weeks of the year with 5 full days of school. All other weeks have at least 1 day off / partial day. 20. Out of 52. For elementary I counted 30 days of no school DURING the school year.

Can no one see how this calendar is a huge burden to working parents? Most working people only have a few weeks of leave per year. The 6 weeks of no-school (interspersed between August - June) + 10 weeks for summer... That is a LOT of time to cover w/ alternate care arrangements.

Anonymous wrote:Maybe move the winter break to the first two weeks of January. It’d space out the long breaks better.

Yes, and eliminate any religious holidays. Only secular holidays (Labor day, Thanksgiving, President's day, Memorial day) otherwise, it will be an ever expanding list of religous holidays that have to be included so everything is fair and equitable, whch will be very difficult to do.

I can’t find the email. Is there another place to access survey?

Anonymous wrote:Maybe move the winter break to the first two weeks of January. It’d space out the long breaks better.

Instead of the week between Christmas and New Year's? That would be a hard no from me.

Maybe move the winter break to the first two weeks of January. It’d space out the long breaks better.

Anonymous wrote:What about the P/T conferences February 24th/25th? That makes a 2 day week after President's day. I suggested moving the conferences to the 17th/18th for a long weekend instead.

Also, I understand the added holidays but really don't like starting August 23rd. I'd rather lose September 3rd, Indigenous People's Day, Veteran's Day and start the Holiday Break on the 22nd in order to start the year on August 30th.

And why does Spring Break always have to be tied to Easter?! I'd much prefer it the last week of March.

The survey is a little disingenuous, as some of the days offered as substitute instruction days either aren't legally or practically available. For example, the Friday before Labor Day. From the Virginia DOE website: "All school divisions in Virginia may set the school calendar such that the first day students are required to attend is up to 14 days before Labor Day. Those divisions beginning school prior to Labor Day must close each school in the school division from the Friday immediately preceding Labor Day through Labor Day." Also, no one really expects that Christmas Eve or any days between Christmas and New Year's Day will really be instructional days, so it seems a little strange to have offered them.

I agree that the holiday break doesn't have to be so long and it would make sense to go to school through 12/22 and start the vacation on Thursday, 12/23.

Anonymous wrote:I may be in the minority but I hate the early start.

Oh well, I’ve got zero qualms simply starting my kids a week later if it means a nice end-of-summer vacation with my extended family who all start back after Labor Day. The days of caring ended with compulsory, never-ending DL.

+1
I do, too. I could tolerate starting August 30th.