REPORT: Fairfax County Schools Weigh Ditching Christmas, Other Religious Holidays For More Class Time
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has asked parents about eliminating days off for Christmas and other religious holidays to create more time in the classroom.
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FCPS recently sent an email to parents asking for their opinion on potential changes to the school calendar, according to local reporting by 7News.
“Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) values your input as we plan future school calendars. You are invited to complete a brief survey to share your priorities and perspectives, which will be considered as part of the calendar planning process. Your feedback matters, and we appreciate you taking a few minutes to respond,” the email reads.
One question on the survey included eliminating religious holidays like Christmas as a possible option for making more instruction time. (RELATED: School Choice Reportedly Caused Graduation Rates, College Acceptance To Skyrocket In Louisiana’s High Crime Areas)
“If the school calendar required modifying one of the following, which would be the most acceptable to you?” the question asked.
“Eliminating holidays recognizing religious and cultural observances (e.g., Christmas, Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Rosh Hashanah, and other observed holidays” was one of the choices, according to 7News.
Other possibilities included shortening winter break or spring break, observing fewer federal holidays or making the day before Thanksgiving a school day.
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The survey asked parents whether they were “satisfied” with the school calendar. It also requested that they rank the importance of taking time off for religious holidays or keeping winter and spring breaks at their current length.
The survey did not offer options for reducing school planning or teacher work days, which also give students time off.
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The email comes in response to parents sending thousands of messages to FCPS asking for more five-day weeks in the school year, according to 7News. The outlet said fewer than half of the school weeks currently have five days of teaching.
The school board has already adjusted the calendar for the next school year, voting in April to make Veterans Day a school day and to decrease the number of elementary school scheduled early release days from 12 to eight, 7News reported. An attempt to eliminate the day off for Indigenous Peoples Day failed on a 7-4 vote.
Stephanie Aurora Lundquist, mother of three children attending FCPS, responded to the survey by blasting the district’s leaders for their “anti-Christian bias” in an interview Monday with Fox News.
“In 2022 the school board voted to change spring break with the express purpose of decoupling it from Easter, and then in 2024 the County’s Board of Supervisors, the governing Council, voted to commemorate transgender visibility day on Easter,” Lundquist said. “So this is just a drop in the bucket and showing their anti-Christian biases.”
Lundquist emphasized that the current calendar is hurting students.
“So, just randomly it might be a Wednesday, you wake up and you’re wondering, does my child have school today? And meanwhile, 25% of the students in Fairfax County are not reading and math proficient. So, the focus is on all of these planning days, work days, and observance days, and the children are failing,” Lundquist said.
“What they should actually do is move back to say, a 1990’s calendar, that prioritized five-day school weeks, regular winter break, regular spring break, and regular summer and just send the resources that they’re using for these fake surveys back to the schools,” Lundquist added.
FCPS told the Daily Caller that it is “committed to developing an academic calendar that works best for students, staff and families.”
“We are in the midst of conducting outreach to families, including a survey, in the hopes of identifying their top priorities for future school calendars, such as the number of five day weeks in a school year, the length of spring break or winter break, consistency and predictability of early release days, time off before Thanksgiving, federal holidays and religious and cultural observances,” the school district added.
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