School Board considers reducing the number of school holidays

The Fairfax County School Board will consider a motion at its April 9 meeting to make the following changes in the school calendar:

• Schedule Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday, Oct. 12, 2026, as a student instructional day;

• Schedule Veterans Day annually as a student instructional day; and

• Schedule no more than four early-release days per school year.

Those changes would be the first steps in a longer-term effort to restructure the FCPS calendar, according to three school board members – Ricardy Anderson (Mason), Matteo Dunne (Mount Vernon), and Ilryong Moon (at-large) – at a virtual community meeting on April 7.

The school board members believe the school year has too many holidays and early-release days.

“A fragmented school calendar is detrimental to student academic achievement,” Dunne said. “Consistency is important.”

Schools across the county where students attend school four days a week “have shown significant declines in math and reading scores compared to schools that operate five days a week,” he said.

Anderson suggested that if students attend school on Veterans Day and Indigenous Peoples Day, there could be a requirement for lessons on the themes tied to those holidays.

The FCPS calendar has 303 instructional days, compared to 297 in Arlington and 291 in Falls Church, while the school year in Richmond is three weeks shorter.

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While FCPS students receive the same amount of instruction time as other students in Virginia, its calendar is spread out across more of the year. Virginia requires 180 days or 990 instructional hours per year.

The number of five-day weeks on the FCPS calendar has declined from 70 percent in the early 2000s to just 52 percent now.

FCPS also has the shortest summer break – 62 days – than most other school districts in the region.

A longer summer break would be helpful for teachers and students who need the extra income from summer jobs, Anderson said.

When the board approved starting school before Labor Day, the expectation was that the year would end earlier in May, Moon said. That hadn’t happened.

Reducing the number of early-release days would benefit parents who struggle to find daycare on those days or have their children come home to an empty house.

One key issue raised during the meeting is how to ensure teachers have enough time for planning and professional development if there are fewer early-release days.

Dunne suggested bringing teachers back for two weeks before students start school or have teachers carry out planning while students take electives.

The state requires 14 days of staff development annually. That can’t all be done at the beginning of the year, Anderson noted; there has to be room for professional development throughout the year.

Among the other issues raised at the meeting: the need to ensure each quarter has the same number of days, the need to accommodate students’ religious observances without giving them a day off, and whether the winter break could be shorter.

“We need a clear and consistent framework for the superintendent to build a calendar,” Anderson said.

She said a calendar developed by the superintendent should be subject to review by the school board and available for community discussion before it’s adopted.