001time now. A school calendar that keeps kids in school for more days of the year. Fairfax County school board members are working on updating their calendar for next year. The board has been debating options for over 3 hours now and frustrated parents have raised concerns that this is impacting their lives and their budgets. Randy Hildreth joins us now live outside that meeting in Fair in Falls Church. What have the board members sort of settled on tonight, Randy? Yeah, good evening to you. So, here's the thing, across the board everyone has agreed tonight that the calendar should be fixed, but there has been a lot of back and forth about what that would look like. The latest debate tonight was about whether students will report on Veterans Day next school year. It's a federal holiday, typically
002they are off, but as you mentioned, the goal tonight is to get students in the classroom as much as possible moving forward. Here's a little of that conversation tonight. Uh frankly, we are working to correct the hot mess that is now scalding our community. And so, just to give you a rundown of tonight, about 45 minutes ago a motion passed that would limit early release days to no more than eight times per school year for elementary students. A motion failed tonight that would have had students in school on Indigenous Peoples Day. Board members in favor said it wasn't the best plan, but they felt it was a start to get students in school more. Those against said it's already a federal holiday, many families are already off, so it's really not helpful in a tweak
003to the calendar. Families who were here tonight say they want the district to figure all of this out because it is spreading them thin. It often requires myself and my wife to to rush home, grab the kids, make sure that they can can get home and someone's there to to to be there for them. And so, it can be very disruptive to schedules, to work schedules as well, and that puts pressure on the family. I would like to find other days and then and I think there is possibility of having other days to be open where they're closed right now, or obviously this board this board did not vote for calendar, right? So, I'm open to discussing with this with the community. Now, according to school data, just over half of the weeks this school
004year have been five full days, which as you've heard family say, it is not enough, tough on their schedules, and some say they've had to pay for child care when schools were closed or dismissed early. Now, the changes voted on tonight go into effect next school year. We'll have to get an update about where things landed on the Veterans Holiday, but one thing that was discussed a lot today was school board members getting together, and then also getting some more input from the superintendent about how to change the schedule moving forward. We'll follow this closely and keep you updated. I'll send it back to you. Live tonight, Randy Hildreth, WUSA9. I can understand why parents want more instructional days for their students, right? We see how that schedule's lining up. All right, Randy, we'll keep
005an eye close eye on it, and keep us posted, too.