Long weekend?!?

[damont]

killernurd spent Friday gaming with two of his friends from school. They were not playing hooky; they had the day off. They also have tomorrow (Monday) off. Why, on the weekend AFTER Memorial Day, did Fairfax County Public Schools decide to hold a second consecutive long weekend, and even longer than the first one to boot?

Not that stealthcomic or her colleagues are complaining about it, under the circumstances. Of that I am certain (having been in shoes like unto theirs myself). But this is the first time that FCPS has ever pulled this particular stunt, and they did so without any explanation as far as I can tell. So I'm just puzzled.

Comments

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

Unused snow days. Dunno why they scheduled them that way, though.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Nope. They were built into the calendar from the very start of the year. In addition to the 183 actual school days for the kids. Tony has been in FCPS for 12 years now, and 3 snow days is what they've gotten EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Which posed a problem in first and third grades (1993-94 and 1995-96 respectively, utterly horrid winter weather those years).

And they used exactly three snow days. Lucky for them, as two of the cancellations could easily have been part-days if they'd actually been paying attention to the weather (actual conditions and up-to-the-minute revised forecasts) when they were SUPPOSED to be. But they lucked out, so I'll not burden the point further. No, these two days off might have been built into the schedule as "makeup days" just in case more than three days got canceled for weather, but we parents got no explanation for them. None at all.

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the explanation she gave me, and presumably was given herself. Perhaps it is as you speculate and she just didn't elaborate that to me.

I wasn't about to question it, it meant we actually got to spend a day together. :)

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Which is a good thing.

[montuos]

...we actually got to spend a day together. :)

And there was much rejoicing!

[stealthcomic.livejournal.com]

The lack of "snow days" posed a problem the during the 03-04 school year because Isabelle came to call. As you may remember, the system used all of its "free snow days" for Isabelle. Then they used more snow days late in the school year, and had to scramble to ensure that they had the required number of instructional hours.

That was the year of the extended school day--too many parents complained when the school board recommended adding days to the end of the calendar year. I do not believe that it is coincidence that the 04-05 included a couple of spare days that they could reclaim close to but before the end of the year.

Not that it's a going concern for you anymore, but they've decided to pad the school calendar differently next year and have reserved the right to hold classes two days after school is scheduled to release for the summer. They're TRYING to get it right.

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

Easing the parents into summer break??

S