The five-day week, healthy smartphone use, and pandemic preparedness
School Board Member at Large (Ryan McElveen) 3 weeks 6 days agoHaving trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page .
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Dear friends,
I hope you had a wonderful and rejuvenating spring break! I’m writing to update you on several important School Board actions this week on the revising the school calendar, encouraging healthy smartphone use, and establishing a pandemic preparedness working group.
Restoring more five-day school weeks
This year's school calendar has been one of the most difficult to navigate in my 35 years of involvement with Fairfax County Public Schools as a student, the son of a teacher, and School Board member. Some disruptions — snow days, tornado days, and unexpected election days — are unavoidable. Others don't have to be.
This Thursday, April 9, I'm supporting an effort to restore more five-day school weeks, including:
- Making Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day a school day
- Restoring Veterans Day as a school day (the traditional FCPS practice)
- Limiting early release days to no more than four next school year
Our calendar is a living document and it is the School Board’s duty and responsibility to make it work better for students, families, and employees. We've done it before: full-day Kindergarten in 2011, an annual two-week winter break in 2013, full-day Mondays for elementary schoolers in 2014, and a pre-Labor Day start in 2017. These changes weren't inevitable — they happened because our community and School Board pushed for them.
However, with the implementation of a three-year rolling calendar over the past several years, the School Board has delegated responsibility for calendar approval to the superintendent, which contrasts to the traditional practice of the Board voting to approve the calendar each year. Simultaneously, community voice has been diluted with community members being removed from the FCPS calendar committee, which has reverted to an internal staff committee.
Making our calendar more inclusive has been a positive development — families feel more seen when their cultures and traditions are recognized. But inclusivity and practicality must go hand in hand. Teachers need reliable planning time, and families need consistency. The calendar may never be perfect, but the School Board must work toward continuous improvement. We must take seriously our duty and responsibility to improve the calendar policy. I'm committed to this work. I am hopeful that my colleagues can support these changes to guarantee that we have a calendar that truly works for our students, families, and educators alike.
Supporting healthy smartphone use
Tomorrow, I'm bringing a proposal to make FCPS a national leader in supporting healthy student development through the “ Wait Until 8th” initiative .
This initiative focuses specifically on smartphones. Families can choose to continue to stay connected using basic phones or limited-function smartwatches without the risks and distractions of smartphones. This is not about regulating decisions at home. It's about giving families strength of a shared community standard. When we move together, we reduce social pressure ensuring that no child feels excluded for not having early smartphone access.
FCPS has already taken important steps to limit phone use during the school day. This proposal builds on that foundation by empowering schools to clearly communicate a shared, evidence-based community norm. By aligning educators and families around this expectation, we can reduce pressure on students and create a culture where children have more time to learn, connect, and develop without the distractions of early smartphone use. This is an opportunity to shape a healthier culture for our students — one where they can focus in the classroom, build real-world relationships, sleep well, and thrive academically and emotionally.
Creating a pandemic preparedness working group
The COVID-19 pandemic was arguably the most disruptive event our school system has ever faced. The learning loss, the social setbacks, the surge in chronic absenteeism — the effects are still with us today, and they fell hardest on children who were already most vulnerable. We haven't yet asked the critical question: What did we learn, and how do we do better next time?
Tomorrow, I'm bringing a proposal to establish a pandemic preparedness working group — a structured effort to capture the lessons of COVID while the people who lived them are still here. This group would be tasked with developing clear, evidence-based guidance for how FCPS should respond to future public health crises.
We have a narrow window to undertake a thorough and collaborative review while institutional knowledge is still intact. I want FCPS to lead the nation in turning hard experience into lasting preparation — so our students, families, and staff are never caught flat-footed again.
Thank you for your continued engagement, and I wish you all the best for the spring season.
Sincerely,
Ryan
The views contained within this newsletter reflect the views of the individual school board member who is the publisher of this newsletter and may not reflect the views of the Fairfax County School Board.
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E-mail: Ryan McElveen | Phone: 571-423-1091
Director, District Board Operations: Barb Flis | 571-423-1079
