Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here - also - October sucks. They couldn't have figured out a way to align Diwali with the end of the quarter instead of having 3 Mondays off PLUS Yom Kippur? Or sticking with their normal end of the quarter TWD the Monday before election day would have been fine too.

Ugh.

Pssst.

FCPS does not decide which day Diwali occurs on.

I mean, get real.

I am as anti the current school board as they come, but getting mad at them for not moving Diwali and Yom Kippur is a tad over the top.

I’m aware that Diwali doesn’t move, but teacher workdays do.

Anonymous wrote:WTAF is an “O” day?? Kids can just F it and stay home?

HS kids do. Look at the O Day data from this year. Diwali traditionally had *fewer* absences than normal. This year, HS kids just didn’t attend and absences were 27% higher. I let my senior skip. She had college apps and pointed out she could get more work done at home than with kids screwing around in a classroom while teachers graded papers.

Anonymous wrote:Most teens don't take AP exams. Your post reeks of privilege.

Most low income people prefer school to go as long as possible into June for childcare issues.

Tell me you don’t have HS kids without saying you don’t have HS kids.

Schools are now starting to require an AP or IB class. And parents of teens don’t have childcare issues.

Now, while we talk about equity and. Low income people do have teens who need to work in the summer. And this calendar makes that very hard. The kid can’t start until 3 weeks after Memorial Day. That’s a lot of season jobs going to college kids and not Hs kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the f are Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and Diwali holidays now?

...Why are Christmas and Easter 2 weeks and 1 week long, respectively?

Because New Years is a week later. Both are federal holidays. Just way easier to lump the 2 together to make it a 2-week break especially since 98% of folks also have Christmas Eve and NYE off too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the f are Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and Diwali holidays now?

...Why are Christmas and Easter 2 weeks and 1 week long, respectively?

Because that’s what people voted for and it’s what we did for the past few years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting on 8/22 and ending on 6/16? Random days off? How the heck are working parents supposed to earn a living? Is this just a product of woke upper class parents? When did the public comment period on this calendar even happen????

Link? Where can we find the approved calander?

You won’t find any link to a “calander” or colander.

Anonymous wrote:Why the f are Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and Diwali holidays now?

...Why are Christmas and Easter 2 weeks and 1 week long, respectively?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a working parent and don’t see it as an f u … it’s not like I have the summer off {{shrug}}.

Same. I'm a working parent and I actually think summers are TOO long. Specially for teenagers and working parents.

What are you talking about?

You don't have teens if you think summer is too long for teens. It is way to short.

Put in one summer program in June-July, and sports practices starting in August, teens often only end up with one or two weeks of unscheduled summer break.

Put yourself in other parents shoes a bit...

Working parents WORK in the summer, which means many teens spend their summer days home alone.

Parents of teens don't worry about that. If you had teens you would know that half of the work day is spent sleeping in.

The working parent thing is an elementary kid issue. Not a teen issue.

Yep, summers as a parent of a teen are so much easier than ES.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would bet that teens would be happy to have a 2 week break at the end of each quarter because that would give them more time to recover/catch up during the school year.

No, they wouldn't.

That would screw up their summers AND their sports/activities/clubs/rehearsals.

For those with summer jobs, it would completely cut into that schedule.

It would also make it very difficult for teens to participate in any summer programs as most of them start the middle of June.

Do you know many teens?

I was a teen who played sports and was in marching band and worked and thought summer was too long and kind of boring by the end of it.

And I know that there are a good number of teens not playing a sport or participating in activities that start up early and who are not working. I also know that many teens who are work during the summer are able to work those same jobs during the school year and could probably pick up extra hours on the two week breaks if they want to do that.

So your answer is that you do not know many teens .

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No calendar is going to make everyone happy. I want kids in school MORE days to compensate for all the lost years of Covid, I would be happy with a one week winter break and a shorter summer but no one gets their preference. I guess they did a good job if everyone is unhappy.

The problem is that kids are actually in school fewer days. There are so many needless breaks in instruction.

How is it less? It’s the same 180 days as always.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Summer vacation is down to 9 weeks now?

That is what it seems like - I wonder how the teachers feel about that.

I’m a teacher and don’t mind. I like breaks during the year to help avoid burnout.

Anonymous wrote:Most teens don't take AP exams. Your post reeks of privilege.

Most low income people prefer school to go as long as possible into June for childcare issues.

The entire Summer should be 10 weeks because we love the pool and travel to Europe and it is so great to hang out at the beach with the kids crowd. End school after AP exams and don’t restart until September because sports/activities/travel/family traditions/2 months of sleep away camp crowd don’t seem to understand that they are the minority in the County.

Most kids will not take an AP exam. Their academic lives in High School are not driven by AP exams.
Most families don’t belong to a neighborhood pool. Those are expensive and there are limited slots.
Most people are not taking extended vacations to the beach or any where else. Working parents, expenses, and the like.
Most kids are not in a sport or activity that starts back before school starts.

Not changing the schedule to something that could benefit the majority of the County because the privileged few want to pay less for their beach vacation or more time at their community pool is ridiculous.

For the record, my family belongs to the community pool (it is dead in August) and fully expect my kid to take AP classes (both of us did, he is capable of it). But I get that my kids privilege does not drive the entire counties schedule. Plenty of families would be better off if summer vacation was shorter and the kids would end up with the same number of vacations, they would be placed at points in time that would be better for the kids and Teachers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would bet that teens would be happy to have a 2 week break at the end of each quarter because that would give them more time to recover/catch up during the school year.

No, they wouldn't.

That would screw up their summers AND their sports/activities/clubs/rehearsals.

For those with summer jobs, it would completely cut into that schedule.

It would also make it very difficult for teens to participate in any summer programs as most of them start the middle of June.

Do you know many teens?

I was a teen who played sports and was in marching band and worked and thought summer was too long and kind of boring by the end of it.

And I know that there are a good number of teens not playing a sport or participating in activities that start up early and who are not working. I also know that many teens who are work during the summer are able to work those same jobs during the school year and could probably pick up extra hours on the two week breaks if they want to do that.

I don’t like all the extra holidays in fall especially since they are just getting going and same with the tons of O days although those are less bad.

But I do not get all the complaints about the ending date. We normally end the 2nd week of June.

Anonymous wrote:Most teens don't take AP exams. Your post reeks of privilege.

Most low income people prefer school to go as long as possible into June for childcare issues.

No one needs childcare for their teens, fyi.

You are making an argument that has nothing to do with teens.

If you had teens, you would know that learning in high school for all intents and purposes completely winds down to a stop once AP exams are over.

This is for everyone.

In fact, very little happens academically during the AP exams, for all grades.

And finals week is half days, where kids only show up for their exams. If they have learning seminar and PE, for example, that finals day is off.