Loudoun County Public Schools is looking at potentially adopting a year-round academic calendar rather than cutting cultural observance days out of consideration for “inclusivity.”
School officials last week debated several different schedules, including one that would stretch classes through all 12 months of the calendar year and essentially eliminate traditional summer vacation.
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Members of the LCPS school board on Tuesday mulled whether to end the 2028-29 academic year on June 13 and start the following school year as early as July 23, which would give students a little more than a month of summer break.
“We are basically doing year-round school with none of the benefits for the learning loss and for the breaks,” Lauren Shernoff, a member of the Loudoun County School Board, said at Tuesday’s bimonthly meeting.
Shernoff noted that summers are already getting “shorter and shorter” to account for designated off days, while teacher contracts remain the same.
“I also think we have got to have an honest conversation about holidays if we are not going to go to year-round school,” Shernoff added.
Although the liberal Northern Virginia school district is located in an area where white people make up the largest demographic, LCPS has 17 cultural holidays, in addition to 17 student holidays, on its calendar. Chinese New Year, the Hindu festival of Diwali, and Yom Kippur are among the culturally tied holidays that Loudoun County recognizes as days off.
Most recently, students had spring break from March 30 to April 1, followed by both April 2 and April 3 off for Good Friday, and a student holiday on April 10, which coincided with Orthodox Good Friday.
Classes were also out of session on March 19, a countywide staff development day, and on March 20 to commemorate Eid al-Fitr, a major Islamic holiday that marks the end of fasting during Ramadan. In light of Virginia’s special election last month, Loudoun County scheduled a student holiday on April 21.
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Lisa Boland, the school district’s chief human resources officer, mentioned that LCPS policy on excused absences allows students to take time from school for religious holidays anyway, without penalty or limit, as long as they have written permission from their parents.
School board member Kari LaBell said she finds the school year, prolonged as it is, to be inefficiently filled with unnecessary off days. All these truncated school weeks, LaBell said, make it difficult for teachers to ensure that students are retaining what they learned and for working-class parents to watch their children or place them in daycare on days off.
“I personally would prefer we shift to a calendar with only federal holidays and a September start date and last day in early June,” she wrote in a social media statement on Thursday. “There are far too many shortened weeks on our current calendar, which is a challenge for teachers and families.”
Shernoff questioned how LCPS honoring only nationally recognized religions was “inclusive,” though she expressed concerns about the high number of school weeks shortened by holidays and their impact on instructional time.
Virginia schools are required by state law to meet a minimum of 180 days or 990 instructional hours within a single school year.
Another calendar option suggests a post-Labor Day start date, a pre-Memorial Day end date, and the inclusion of all observed holidays. However, the proposed school schedule totals only 156 days and 975 instructional hours, falling short of the state requirements.
A 1986 state statute, known as the “Kings Dominion law,” previously mandated that schools across the commonwealth start classes after Labor Day to support the summertime tourism industry. It has since been repealed by the state legislature, but public school systems are permitted to start school up to only 14 days prior to the fall holiday, unless exempted for “good cause.”
“Good cause” means that a school division agrees to teach students year-round.
In 2011, the Virginia Department of Education granted LCPS a waiver to open well before Labor Day, and that waiver remains in effect, allowing Loudoun County to begin school much earlier than the two-week time frame.
“I am vehemently against year-round schooling,” said school board member Jon Pepper, pointing to students being less able to enjoy formative experiences at summer camps and teachers who would lose income from summer jobs. “There is going to be major uproar if we go year-round.”
The year-round proposal is still in a preliminary feedback-gathering phase, as LCPS seeks input from the community at upcoming town halls and through public surveys.
FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOLS RETAIN COPIOUS CULTURAL OBSERVANCE DAYS OUT OF ‘DIVERSITY’ CONCERNS
Fairfax County Public Schools, a neighboring district, is experiencing a similar issue with reducing its number of cultural observance days.
Opponents of their removal argued at a recent FCPS school board meeting that eliminating such multicultural accommodations would “go against the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion that the division strives to uphold.”
