Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a family who celebrates Diwali, I am happy that APS acknowledges one of our holidays. Wish they did more of them.

No complaints for Christmas and Easter I see? *crickets*

More of them? So if each of top 5 or so faiths in terms of proportion of adherents gets ~2-4 holidays from school, when will the kids actually be in class?

Great argument for modified year-round school calendars. Then everyone can have every holiday off. No bickering, no choosing certain holidays/groups over others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK obviously I should have paid attention to this earlier, but I'm looking at the calendar and there's a 5-day weekend around Labor Day? We now have schools closed for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? This is the first year this has happened, right? I'm curious about what proportion of Arlington students observe these holidays. There are also days off for Diwali and Eid al-Fitr. Do we still have the same number of school days in the year? For the record I'm agnostic but culturally Christian, I would be more than happy to swap out existing Christian-based holidays for any of these other religious observances.

Christmas is the only Christian-based holiday in the APS calendar, unless you count scheduling spring break around holy week but that is a regional thing. Christmas is a federal holiday so giving that up wouldn't make much difference.

Why wouldn't you count scheduling spring break around holy week? To my count, that's two major Christian holidays that everyone has off as a matter of course.

Easter is always on a Sunday. Everyone has it off no matter what you do with the school calendar.

But having the week leading up to Easter and often the day after Easter off certainly makes it easier for those who celebrate Easter to make plans. It does not seem like agnostic scheduling to me.

Of course it's not agnostic scheduling. But my point is that you don't have to schedule and extended break in order for people to have the holiday off - in fact, you don't need to schedule any days off at all because it is always on a Sunday. Families can "plan" for Easter just as easily with a calendar that doesn't have an extended break associated with it. Easter Sunday is clearly marked on calendars and the date is readily available anytime someone needs to check when it is.

I believe your point is really about traveling for Easter, and yes, having time off certainly makes that easier. But everyone who celebrates Easter does not travel for it, or have visitors coming in for it. though I'd be curious to know how many actually do specifically in order to observe Easter (and not just because it's also spring break), I would put my money on the bet that far more people travel for Christmas than for Easter, particularly since Christmas (a Christian holiday) is "celebrated" by many non-Christians. It's also a time with multiple holidays so an extended break is logical.

Anonymous wrote:I understand having Christian and Jewish holidays off. The others? Not so much.

Every year I have more students out for Muslim holidays than all the others combinec

My kids both had classmates out for Eid.

I understand having Christian and Jewish holidays off. The others? Not so much.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree it’s annoying that they’ve extended the school year by a week but not because we get something like fall break. It’s a bunch of mid week days. And I did look at and vote on a calendar months ago. Not having these days off and getting out earlier was not in any of the choices.
I celebrate Easter but couldn’t care less if spring break is tied to it. Easter is on a weekend— no need to miss school. Christmas is a federal holiday, so there’d be no school then anyway.
People should be able to celebrate their holidays, but extending the school year by adding a bunch of mid-week days off isn’t the answer.

So when those holidays fall in the middle of the week, how would you suggest allowing people to celebrate their holidays, if not giving school off those days?

APS offers an excused absence for religious holidays. Which will still be necessary, because we can’t possibly account for the religious holidays of every single APS student.

Even while the absence was excused, my kids would fight to go to school on our family’s religious holidays because they hated missing school and falling behind. An excused absence is not at all the same as having the day off. I applaud APS for honoring many major holidays from major religions apart from Christianity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree it’s annoying that they’ve extended the school year by a week but not because we get something like fall break. It’s a bunch of mid week days. And I did look at and vote on a calendar months ago. Not having these days off and getting out earlier was not in any of the choices.
I celebrate Easter but couldn’t care less if spring break is tied to it. Easter is on a weekend— no need to miss school. Christmas is a federal holiday, so there’d be no school then anyway.
People should be able to celebrate their holidays, but extending the school year by adding a bunch of mid-week days off isn’t the answer.

So when those holidays fall in the middle of the week, how would you suggest allowing people to celebrate their holidays, if not giving school off those days?

APS offers an excused absence for religious holidays. Which will still be necessary, because we can’t possibly account for the religious holidays of every single APS student.

Anonymous wrote:I agree it’s annoying that they’ve extended the school year by a week but not because we get something like fall break. It’s a bunch of mid week days. And I did look at and vote on a calendar months ago. Not having these days off and getting out earlier was not in any of the choices.
I celebrate Easter but couldn’t care less if spring break is tied to it. Easter is on a weekend— no need to miss school. Christmas is a federal holiday, so there’d be no school then anyway.
People should be able to celebrate their holidays, but extending the school year by adding a bunch of mid-week days off isn’t the answer.

So when those holidays fall in the middle of the week, how would you suggest allowing people to celebrate their holidays, if not giving school off those days?

I agree it’s annoying that they’ve extended the school year by a week but not because we get something like fall break. It’s a bunch of mid week days. And I did look at and vote on a calendar months ago. Not having these days off and getting out earlier was not in any of the choices.
I celebrate Easter but couldn’t care less if spring break is tied to it. Easter is on a weekend— no need to miss school. Christmas is a federal holiday, so there’d be no school then anyway.
People should be able to celebrate their holidays, but extending the school year by adding a bunch of mid-week days off isn’t the answer.

Anonymous wrote:Amazing that school starts in 2 weeks and some people are just now lining at the calendar.

For real. I also don’t think I would have come on to a public forum and essentially admitted it, much less complain about the calendar that was approved a long time ago.

Anonymous wrote:Amazing that school starts in 2 weeks and some people are just now lining at the calendar.

*looking

Amazing that school starts in 2 weeks and some people are just now lining at the calendar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Easter is always on a Sunday. Everyone has it off no matter what you do with the school calendar.

But having the week leading up to Easter and often the day after Easter off certainly makes it easier for those who celebrate Easter to make plans. It does not seem like agnostic scheduling to me.

I celebrate Easter and I still wish spring break came at the midpoint between the return to school in January and the end of the school year. Or that it came at the end of the third quarter. Just something logical and predictable.

I'm a jew and I would gladly give up the yom kippur holiday to get out of school a day earlier in the summer. and I think my kids would vastly prefer school to sitting through a whole yom kippur service...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m fine with the extra holidays, but what’s up with the grade prep day on a Tuesday with Diwali on Thursday. Why couldn’t grade prep happen on Friday for a less disruptive week? Wouldn’t kids get more done Mon-Wed instead of M/W/F?

OP here, this is my issue. As a working parent (not among the lucky teleworkers) it's incredibly hard to have to constantly take random days off in the middle of the week. I absolutely want to supports others' right to celebrate, but it's just a lot. Not to mention all the teacher work days and conference days, etc. In this example, why couldn't the 99.9% of APS teachers who do NOT observe Diwali do their grade prep on that day, rather than taking a whole other day for it?

Op, hopefully school day out camps will be a thing again this year even with covid and you don’t have to take all of those days off!