I would fine with having federal holidays off. I am not ok with all the new built in "religious observance days" where it's basically baby sitting at school. And cut the darn snow days and get our earlier in June.

Anonymous wrote:I hope FCPS can make this fix. All of the random days off are disruptive to learning and hard on working parents. I'm totally supportive of a 4 day weekend in October and/or February to break up the longer stretches, but we need more consistency and 5 day weeks.

-Arlington parent, with a school board that feels compelled to follow the FCPS schedule

That’s a you problem, not an FCPS problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

What is a secondary parent? I googled it and it was about older children taking on the role as secondary parent to their siblings.

Seriously?? You couldn’t figure it out?! A parent of a kid in secondary school - middle or high school basically. Not an elementary school parent.

I hope FCPS can make this fix. All of the random days off are disruptive to learning and hard on working parents. I'm totally supportive of a 4 day weekend in October and/or February to break up the longer stretches, but we need more consistency and 5 day weeks.

-Arlington parent, with a school board that feels compelled to follow the FCPS schedule

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

Good to know you don't value education. Most. parents and teacher do.

You’re an idiot. It’s the same number of hours/days regardless of how you arrange them. While 5 day weeks may be better for elementary students, days off throughout the year can benefit middle and high schoolers.

Parents who don’t mind the current calendar value education as much as you do.

I'd love to see some evidence of that. And the kids get plenty of days off as it is.

Right. Kids really should not need this many breaks. It is such a stupid argument and a lazy way of looking at education.

It's lazy? Okay, you draw up your ideal calendar with the same number of hours/days (because that is not going to change) and tell me how that is less lazy. A longer summer isn't less lazy. Kids are going to school for roughly 990 hours no matter how you configure them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

Good to know you don't value education. Most. parents and teacher do.

You’re an idiot. It’s the same number of hours/days regardless of how you arrange them. While 5 day weeks may be better for elementary students, days off throughout the year can benefit middle and high schoolers.

Parents who don’t mind the current calendar value education as much as you do.

I'd love to see some evidence of that. And the kids get plenty of days off as it is.

Right. Kids really should not need this many breaks. It is such a stupid argument and a lazy way of looking at education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is like the 3rd active thread on this topic right now. The others didn’t suffice?

Seriously. It is what it is. My high school kids really like it. It’s actually a nice regular break during those stressful years. Clearly people have found a way to get childcare so just stick with that. Constant threads on DCUM will never get it to change.

Wrong. It isn't what it is. We need to speak up against it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, no. One problem is that "floating holidays" or religious leave would cause a ton of operational issues. The other problem is that elementary parents are the only ones who are really bothered by the calendar. I'm a secondary teacher and it's not something anyone complains about. High schoolers and their parents love it because the kids can study for AP exams, visit colleges, and work on those days off. Middle schoolers are happy to have the chance to sleep in and are old enough to be left home unattended so the parents aren't rearranging their schedules.

This x billion

No. It is not this x billion. No one agrees with this Calendar but a few lazy parents or teachers. Most of us want our kids in school and learning on a consistent, non-fragmented schedule (parent of HS kids)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

Good to know you don't value education. Most. parents and teacher do.

You’re an idiot. It’s the same number of hours/days regardless of how you arrange them. While 5 day weeks may be better for elementary students, days off throughout the year can benefit middle and high schoolers.

Parents who don’t mind the current calendar value education as much as you do.

Stop parroting this nonsense. It is totally awful to have all these days off. No one likes them. We want to get on with actual school. And get out for summer earlier. We just had Spring Break. Even the kids want to get back into the swing of things.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think having every religious holiday under the sun is absolutely absurd but maybe I’m in the minority.

Monday and Friday off this week after spring break? Absolutely asinine.

Monday and Friday this week are not religious holidays. Don't blame minority religions for your issues with the calendar.

The BS "School Planning Day" is covering for Orthodox Good Friday.

There are only 7 religious/cultural holidays on the calendar:

Rosh Hashanah
Yom Kippur
Diwali
Christmas (tied to winter break)
Eid al Fitr
Easter (tied to spring break)
Eid al Adha

In some years, some of those fall on weekends or over the summer and don't affect the calendar at all.

It makes sense for them to line up teacher work days and planning days with other holidays to help people celebrate without having a bunch of extra days off. I agree that this Monday and Friday are annoying to have off, but they're not actually holidays on the calendar, and framing this issue as a problem with holidays is just scapegoating the holidays instead of addressing the issue of poorly timed/too many TWs/SPs and early release days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think having every religious holiday under the sun is absolutely absurd but maybe I’m in the minority.

Monday and Friday off this week after spring break? Absolutely asinine.

Monday and Friday this week are not religious holidays. Don't blame minority religions for your issues with the calendar.

The BS "School Planning Day" is covering for Orthodox Good Friday.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, I love the days off and what they represent. Most secondary parents like them, whether they care about the holidays off or not.

Good to know you don't value education. Most. parents and teacher do.

Children are learning about other things on religious holidays.

Yes, they are learning that their school system is only good at keeping kids out of school.

Anonymous wrote:I think having every religious holiday under the sun is absolutely absurd but maybe I’m in the minority.

Monday and Friday off this week after spring break? Absolutely asinine.

Monday and Friday this week are not religious holidays. Don't blame minority religions for your issues with the calendar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're not in the minority. It's insane.

Anyone who approved this calendar should be fired.

Remove all religious holidays from the calendar.

So you want schools open on Christmas Day?

Once again, for the slow learners, Christmas is not a school holiday.

Anonymous wrote:SACC is open on the majority of these days. The ones it isn't open for are the two Eids, and maybe Diwali. And that's because they have many staff who celebrate and would request off, making it an operational issue.

There are a required number of professional development days for staff, and they are scheduled as much as possible at the same time as holidays celebrated by fewer people. For example, this Friday is Orthodox Good Friday.

If you want change, tell the school board to push the superintendent to have fewer professional development days.

You clearly no longer have a child in SACC. Things are different this year.