Stephanie Lundquist-Arora | April 21, 2026
(IWFeatures) — In January 2022, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) adopted a calendar containing fewer five-day school weeks and more early release days with the explicitly stated goals of “equity and inclusion.”
At that time, the 12 Democratic-endorsed school board members also voted to decouple spring break from Easter — a terrible idea that lasted only a year — as part of broader efforts to create a more “equitable” school calendar.
FCPS’s updated calendar further recognizes several religious and cultural holidays, including Eid al-Adha, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Día de los Muertos, Diwali, Bodhi Day, Three Kings Day/Epiphany, Orthodox Christmas, Orthodox Epiphany, Lunar New Year, Ramadan, Good Friday, Theravada, Orthodox Good Friday/Last Night of Passover and Eid al-Fitr.
For many of these days, schools are closed to students. The district designates a smaller number — such as Bodhi Day, Three Kings Day, and the first day of Ramadan — as “observance days.”
When classrooms are open on religious and cultural observance days, referred to on the district’s calendar as “O” Days, district policy dictates that schools are prohibited from administering tests and quizzes, going on field trips, or holding scheduled athletic events. Teachers are further discouraged from introducing new material on those days.
Under the tab labeled “Guidance for Lessons or Activities on Full Observance Days,” the FCPS website states, “Reinforce previously acquired material; or Introduce new material provided that the lesson content is made available to students using the learning management system and the teacher follows up directly with students who miss the lesson for a religious or cultural observance.”
Following wide reporting on the district’s calendar, the policy regarding introducing new material remains unchanged and equally as inconvenient to teachers.
On April 9, following an increase in parental complaints about the district’s calendar, several school board members proposed changes to increase the number of five-day school weeks and reduce early dismissal days from 12 to four. After extended debate and an exhausting number of platitudes, the outcome was a modest adjustment: the district added one instructional day on Veterans Day and reduced the number of half-days from 12 to eight.
That’s it. After a school board meeting that lasted more than five hours, FCPS students will have one additional five-day school week. Meanwhile, families with younger children still have to arrange childcare for the remaining observance days and eight early-release days next year.
District leaders frequently reference “disparate impact,” but economically disadvantaged students and families continue to bear the brunt of the resulting disruptions.
An irregular calendar and budgetary allocations that do not prioritize student outcomes are two factors that contribute to students’ low standardized test performance, particularly among economically disadvantaged students (41.1%, 74,210 students) and English language learners (26.8%, 48,390 students), who likely overlap. The table below details Standards of Learning (SOL) failure rates for all FCPS students, compared with those of English language learners and economically disadvantaged students.
FCPS SOL Failure Rate (2024-2025)
| Subject | Overall | ELL | Low Income |
| Reading | 21% | 69% | 42% |
| Writing | 84% | 98% | 95% |
| Math | 22% | 56% | 41% |
| Science | 25% | 68% | 46% |
| History | 58% | 76% | 70% |
Source: Virginia Department of Education
While the intent behind the excessive expansion of FCPS’s religious and cultural observances supposedly is to promote inclusion, the practical effect has been a more fragmented academic schedule and reduced instructional continuity for students, which, ironically, is yielding outcomes that are the most damaging for low-income students and families. In trying to redesign equity into the calendar, FCPS has instead engineered more inequality into the classroom.
District leaders should let this serve as a lesson. Instead of politicizing public education, perhaps they should focus on their core responsibility: ensuring students can read and do math at grade level.
Ms. Lundquist-Arora is a Fairfax parent and leads the county’s Independent Women’s Network chapter.