Millions of school children across the country are enjoying their summer vacations, but not the students of Fairfax County Public Schools, in Virginia, who still have almost two weeks of school ahead of them. A mid-June release date is not that uncommon for schools elsewhere, but those that end in June usually begin after Labor Day. That is not the case with Fairfax County Public Schools. Its schools start in August and run through June, the longest school year in America.
This is because of an embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Fairfax County Public Schools has created one of the most bloated and chaotic calendars in the country: an August-to-June school year, an unusually short summer, a long list of student holidays, and remarkably few normal five-day weeks. This helps no one, inconveniences parents, disrupts student learning, and encourages delinquency.
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Before George Floyd’s death and the summer of Black Lives Matter riots, Fairfax County Public Schools had no “cultural” observance or holidays on the calendar. But in a deliberate effort to promote “values of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the board added 15 “observance” days on which student absences would be excused, meaning schools are barred from scheduling tests, quizzes, field trips, or athletic events on those days. Although these observance days do not create a full day off, they disrupt learning because teachers are encouraged not to teach new material while some students are excused from school.
The 15 observance days include: Bodhi Day, Dia de los Muertos, Diwali, Eid al Adha, Eid al Fitr, Good Friday, Lunar New Year, Orthodox Christmas, Orthodox Epiphany, Orthodox Good Friday, Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, Theravada New Year, Three Kings Day, and Yom Kippur.
That 2021-22 school calendar delinked Easter and spring break with the express purpose of promoting DEI values. The backlash against this change was so strong that Fairfax County Public Schools went back to the linked Easter-Spring Break the next school year.
But the woke Democratic school board wasn’t done messing with the calendar. For the 2022-23 school year, it converted six of the 15 cultural observance days into outright holidays on which schools closed. The six new days off included Diwali, Eid al Adha, Eid al Fitr, Orthodox Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur.
Each new holiday either disrupts a normal five-day school week or turns existing holidays into absurd mini-breaks. This Memorial Day, for example, students had not only Monday off, but also Tuesday because of a teacher work day, and Wednesday for Eid al Adha, turning what should have been a nice, relaxing three-day weekend into a five-day childcare nightmare for thousands of parents.
Excessive school holidays undermine the core purpose of school by turning the calendar into a logistical and instructional obstacle course. Fairfax County parents are not complaining about an occasional day off; they are dealing with the fact that only half the weeks in the school calendar are five days long. Lack of routine makes it harder for teachers to build momentum, harder for students, especially younger students, to retain habits and lessons, and harder for parents who must arrange childcare. The burden is especially unfair to low-income families, who are less able to pay for sitters, camps, or tutoring every time school closes. A calendar designed to honor every constituency may sound inclusive, but in practice, it sacrifices the one thing schools are supposed to provide: consistent instruction.
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Faced with growing parent anger, the Fairfax County school board added insult to injury with a “solution” that further undermined shared values. Last month, it voted to keep all current cultural days off, and make up for it by canceling Veterans Day, which most parents already have off as it is a federal holiday.
Fairfax County should stop treating schools as a vehicle for woke activism and work to a sensible calendar again. By fragmenting the school year, the board hurts the low-income and working-class families DEI is allegedly trying to protect, while replacing shared civic holidays with sectarian scorekeeping. Students need routine, teachers need uninterrupted instructional time, parents need predictability, and communities need a common culture.
