Anonymous wrote:Anyone read the comments? They are like 98% negative. Will the school board care?

Oh my gosh it's brutal.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone read the comments? They are like 98% negative. Will the school board care?

Probably not, but with the new format, everyone can see that (almost) no one agrees with the calendar proposal. So I guess they’ll have to admit they truly do not care at all about community feedback.

Anyone read the comments? They are like 98% negative. Will the school board care?

Anonymous wrote:Why do they want to lengthen the school year/shorten the summer, when this idea is extremely unpopular among families & teachers/staff? Does anyone know the underlying motivation?

Staff are upset about the shortened summer but some want 4 day schoolweeks.

Adding the religious holidays is a way to create more 4 day school weeks but say it's for "equity". Except for the tiny inequitable consequence that some major holidays are not on the list and it definitely is not equitable for people who need to find childcare or students with disabilities who need consistency.

Anonymous wrote:Why do they want to lengthen the school year/shorten the summer, when this idea is extremely unpopular among families & teachers/staff? Does anyone know the underlying motivation?

So people at Syphax can get a bunch of paid holidays.

Duran is in the business of MAFA

Make Arlington Fairfax Again


And why? There’s no tangible benefit.

I’m Muslim. The first day of Ramadan as an observance is hilarious and makes absolutely no sense. We fast for 30 days. Either the entire 30 days should be a religious observance (which obviously doesn’t make sense) or there should be no religious observance days for Ramadan.

Anonymous wrote:Why do they want to lengthen the school year/shorten the summer, when this idea is extremely unpopular among families & teachers/staff? Does anyone know the underlying motivation?

I think likely because the Central Office (Syphax) staff get extra (paid!) holidays during the academic year. Which will also be enshrined by the calendar policy. It's demoralizing for 10-month, student-facing staff who don't get paid for those holidays.

Why do they want to lengthen the school year/shorten the summer, when this idea is extremely unpopular among families & teachers/staff? Does anyone know the underlying motivation?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just commented. The part I hate the most is having school end earlier if there are no snow days. My kids are older but that seems hard on parents of elementary school students.

+1. 4th quarter is too late for anyone to make alternative plans. Most camps are filled up by that point, and frankly most camps aren’t going to be available for a week when school is suooosed to be in session anyway.

I also wonder how they are going to align winter and spring breaks with nearby jurisdictions if we’re making the calendars 2 years in advance of the nearby jurisdictions.

Also, does “neighboring jurisdictions” really just mean Fairfax? Because FCPS doesn’t align with FCC, and what about DC and Alexandria?

+1. I don't know why they aren't just transparent and say they're aligning with FCPS. Because they're certainly not aligning with FCC.

They're keeping it vague so that they can pick and chose which jurisdictions to align with to get to where they want. In practice that's going to mean FCPS nine times out of ten.

I'm Jewish and suggested that they decrease the number of religious holidays (suggested only having a day off for Yom kippur). They seem committed to keeping religious holidays despite all the negative comments, but maybe there could be fewer of these days off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just commented. The part I hate the most is having school end earlier if there are no snow days. My kids are older but that seems hard on parents of elementary school students.

+1. 4th quarter is too late for anyone to make alternative plans. Most camps are filled up by that point, and frankly most camps aren’t going to be available for a week when school is suooosed to be in session anyway.

I also wonder how they are going to align winter and spring breaks with nearby jurisdictions if we’re making the calendars 2 years in advance of the nearby jurisdictions.

Also, does “neighboring jurisdictions” really just mean Fairfax? Because FCPS doesn’t align with FCC, and what about DC and Alexandria?

+1. I don't know why they aren't just transparent and say they're aligning with FCPS. Because they're certainly not aligning with FCC.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just commented. The part I hate the most is having school end earlier if there are no snow days. My kids are older but that seems hard on parents of elementary school students.

+1. 4th quarter is too late for anyone to make alternative plans. Most camps are filled up by that point, and frankly most camps aren’t going to be available for a week when school is suooosed to be in session anyway.

I also wonder how they are going to align winter and spring breaks with nearby jurisdictions if we’re making the calendars 2 years in advance of the nearby jurisdictions.

Also, does “neighboring jurisdictions” really just mean Fairfax? Because FCPS doesn’t align with FCC, and what about DC and Alexandria?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just commented. The part I hate the most is having school end earlier if there are no snow days. My kids are older but that seems hard on parents of elementary school students.

+1. 4th quarter is too late for anyone to make alternative plans. Most camps are filled up by that point, and frankly most camps aren’t going to be available for a week when school is suooosed to be in session anyway.

I also wonder how they are going to align winter and spring breaks with nearby jurisdictions if we’re making the calendars 2 years in advance of the nearby jurisdictions.

I think fairfax makes their calendar two years in advance too. At least they already have the calendars for 24-25 and 25-26 up on the website. I am not sure about the other districts though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading about teachers not getting paid for summer school and this lease thing. Where are APS's priorities?

A board member told me that they need all these days because they don't get to telework. But then at the meeting last night, APS said they telework in the summer. So which is it?

We need more days off, more telework and more office space? But we'll cram teachers and kids into old facilities and maybe not even pay them for teaching summer school?

Please explain to me the rationale that people need more paid vacation days because they don't get to telework???
Is that just an admission or acknowledgement that people who telework aren't actually working?
and yes, many of them ARE teleworking.

He said he needed to do this to bd competitive with neighboring districts whose central office staff can telework. When he said it, surely he knew FCPS ended their telework policies. People in central office positions in neighboring districts can’t believe the perks our central office gets. Also- pay us finance and payroll, isn’t it? They’re a mess, as well as HR, as well as my the coordinator, supervisor, and specialists in my content area. No one does squat up there.