Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast
Our podcast serves as a platform to share the voices and stories of our people - our learners and employees - who shape the vision of Chesapeake Public Schools. This podcast provides our community with a unique insight into district operations, demonstrating how the division creates opportunities, prioritizes innovation, and elevates potential. New episodes are released monthly and feature a wide range of topics, including student achievements, innovative teaching practices, community partnerships, and important district initiatives. You can listen to the stories behind our story by subscribing on your favorite podcast platforms or by visiting cpschools.com/amplified.
Amplified: The Chesapeake Public Schools Podcast
Every Minute Counts
We sit down with Dr. Fallon Graham to unpack how our school calendar gets built, why Labor Day timing matters, and how state rules, summer projects, and family needs all fit into one plan. We share the two-year proposal and invite our community to weigh in with informed feedback.
• late Labor Day and its ripple effects
• 180 days, 990 hours, and high school seat time
• four-by-four block benefits and constraints
• why elementary has three added workdays
• summer construction, tech, transport, and cleaning windows
• how we count minutes and bank time
• community survey results favoring post–Labor Day starts
• draft review by operations, T&L, and principals
• two-year calendar proposal for better planning
• how to review the presentation and give feedback
Make sure that you are looking for your input survey. You’ll find it in the family updates and on the Chesapeake Schools website, www.cpschools.com. The survey’s open through October 19th.
The Stories Behind Our Story
You're listening to Amplify, the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. Your front row seat to the stories behind our story. Hey everyone, this is Matt Graham here with Jay Looter. And we are in full swing. The year has started.
SPEAKER_02:We are, Matt. Listen, school is uh about a month in now. It is October, and all of our kids are in full swing in school. All of our athletics are in full swing. Matt, how is your calendar looking this time of year?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I don't even know how I make it out one day because of all the events with our kids. We have soccer, we have gymnastics, baseball, our work schedule on top of it. So sometimes you don't even know like when to take a pause to breathe, you know, it's so busy. But how about yours? Your calendar is pretty busy too.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I only have one child at home now, Matt. So I've got one grown child and one in college. But my daughter who's still home, we are full-time dance. So she is busy with dance about six days a week. She's rocking in that way. I know when we were uh younger family, we used to kind of look forward to a rain day sometimes so we could just have a Saturday off, right?
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes the best. You just sit at home, do nothing, get a reset.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. A nice, uh, nice, cozy Sunday is nice in the fall. So listen, today, Matt, we are excited to have Dr. Fallon Graham on the program. And she is an incredible person, but she's going to spend a lot of time talking about the Chesapeake Public Schools calendar.
SPEAKER_01:Right. This is probably, I would say, one of the hottest topics every year because it literally affects everyone. There's all these things with developing a calendar that people might not know. So we want to shed a light on that to our community.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm excited to talk to Fallon because a lot of folks don't really understand the state requirements that are behind the calendar and what we need for high school and what's required for elementary. And Fallon does a lot of work up to this point to get us ready to present that calendar to the school board and to our community. And so I'm excited to talk to her about all the homework that goes into putting a calendar together and preparing it for the community and the board to make a decision about what we're going to do for the years to come.
SPEAKER_01:So, listeners, we hope you take some uh valuable information away from this podcast episode as we take a deeper dive into our calendar.
SPEAKER_02:Well, welcome back to Amplified, everybody. We are super excited today to have with us Dr. Fallon Graham. Dr. Graham is the director of planning, policy, and research for Chesapeake Public Schools. Dr. Graham, welcome to Amplified.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. I've been listening to Amplified for years, so now is my chance to be on it. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:We're thrilled to have you. A true amplifier.
SPEAKER_02:She's a big fan. From the start. I love it. I love it. Dr. Graham, that is a really big title for your job. Why don't you break that down for our listeners about the work that you do for Chesapeake Schools?
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So I do feel like I have a position where not a lot of people know what I do, but I do a lot of different things. So planning, the start there. I help facilitate the strategic plan. I bring together groups of people and we conduct focus groups to learn what our community values. And then we have drafted Empower 2030, which we recently launched, which has been great. So now we're on the implementation phase of that. And we we assist with that and bring together steering committees and action teams to do that work. For the policy piece, I help with writing school board policy or amending it or even interpreting it. A lot of what I the work I do is interpreting or helping people understand what it means. Um, when it comes to the research, we conduct program evaluations. So this is one that probably most people will know about. We have adjusted our elementary planning schedule. So this year, my team is gonna go in and do some research and see how that is going, how it's being implemented. We wanna see what the results of that change will be. So we go ahead and do that research and we present findings on that. So we like to show okay, or or we offer results or recommendations on that. And then another piece that's not part of the title is I handle records. So student records, FOIA request, the Freedom of Information Act. And so I may have some people who I've worked with on that and educational records, all of that we assist with managing that and answering to that as well.
SPEAKER_02:Fantastic. And Dr. Graham, how rewarding is it that the work that you're doing is really impacting the classroom? It sounds like a lot of the things that you do go right back to our kids.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's the best part. That's why we love the research that we do so much because we get in the classroom, we get to talk with the kids and the teachers, and we like to see how it's actually affecting them. A lot of times something will go out, like a program, but it's great to see a program start, but we get to go in and study how it is going for the entire year and see what the impacts are. So we really enjoy that piece of our work.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And and one of the biggest pieces of your work every year is the school calendar. And it's definitely a hot topic, I would say. That is correct. It is one of our top-reached pages. Uh, I think it's number three, but number one's the homepage, number two is our documents, and then right there is our calendar of events. Again, that is affecting everyone in our Chesapeake Public Schools community. You just presented at the school board meeting on the proposed uh calendars.
SPEAKER_02:Hot off the presses, Matt. Hot off the presses.
SPEAKER_01:Brought her in from the podium from the school board, and here she is right here in the studio the next day. So we hope to share with the community some information. Yeah, what you presented a little bit, but maybe some extra details there that people might not know. So, or what are some guiding principles that help shape the calendar?
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, the calendar really, really has a huge impact on many people's day-to-day lives. It's our community, it's our parents, our children, businesses, our employees. There's just so such a strong impact with what the calendar has. So we don't take the work lightly. It's very important. We understand that this changes everyone's day. And people map out their travel and their holidays and really important events around this calendar. So we really try to make sure we always keep that in the forefront of our mind, that the work we do is going to impact a lot of people. That's probably our number one guiding principle, even though we may not have that listed as a bullet. But another big piece is that the state mandates how much time we have to be in school. So we have to adhere to the law on that. We have to be in school 180 days. When it comes to our high school students, uh, for them to earn credit, they have to have something called a certain amount of seat time. We have to make sure that school is open enough so that our high school students can earn that seat time so that they can get their credits and graduate and move on and be successful. Other pieces to that, we work in our teacher workdays. We have to work in our holidays. So all of these, there's there's so many landmarks throughout our calendar that really structure, shapes, and limits the options that we can come up with.
SPEAKER_01:So it's like m working with a puzzle.
SPEAKER_00:Certainly. There's there are certain things that are fixed, like the holidays are gonna be on the days that they are, and then we have to work our 180 days and our teacher work days around those fixed points.
SPEAKER_02:And Dr. Graham, I love that you recognize the way that the calendar is is shaped around the family.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So I know that that you recognize that and that you are working to make sure that we're meeting all those expectations, but also honoring family time and honoring all those holidays.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah. We have we do receive feedback from our families and and it is very important to us. And we really try to honor as much of it as we can. It is it is difficult because there is a lot of components that go in behind the work in planning that calendar.
SPEAKER_01:What are some common misconceptions about the calendar and the calendar making process that maybe the community should hear?
SPEAKER_00:What's interesting is it's always about like that start date, end date. So as much as we want to start after Labor Day, we also have a desire in the community to not get out in the middle of June, but even get out earlier in June. So it is balancing when we start and also recognizing that we don't want to get out of school late into June as well. And then how do you cram 180 days into that start and end point?
SPEAKER_01:And this year is a unique year, right? Because, or at least for the proposal aspect, because next year's calendar has a later Labor Day start, correct?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah. I I never thought within my work I'd be studying the where Labor Day falls in the month of September, but it's something I do now. And for the next two years, Labor Day is late. And it's something that we saw coming on the horizon. It's it's something that, well, we went back and did research and we haven't really experienced since 2014. And it's cycled its way back through, and it is really shaping our calendar and our proposal that we put out there over the next two years. But what was exciting about our proposal that we were able to do last night is that we could make a two-year calendar, where in the past we've always proposed just one. And I really feel like this two-year proposal is proactive in that we know that in 27-28, we're facing the same thing. So we can prepare now for that.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Now, Dr. Graham, I know that the research that your team did in the previous school year, uh, you guys did some research on that uh pre-Labor Day, post-labor day start with our community, right? And that was a very hot topic uh this time last year. And so can you kind of walk us through what that looks like, the pre-Labor Day start, the post-Labor Day start, and what that means to our schools and our families?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So over the past few years, we have been asking, do you want to start before Labor Day? And resoundingly, the answer is no. Now, in starting before Labor Day, it does have an impact for our families because the our surrounding school districts do start before Labor Day. We have plenty of families who have children in different school districts. So when you have one child starting before Labor Day and another child starting after Labor Day, it's confusing. And then when the holiday breaks don't line up, that gets difficult and challenging as well. We also know that coming up with summer camps and child care is a big part of this pre-Labor Day, post-Labor Day conversation and vacation planning. A lot of people like to travel on Labor Day. If you're local around here, you know that you can get those uh houses a little cheaper around Labor Day. The prices start to drop. So yeah, that's part of it. It's something that I've actually received phone calls over the past few years from one or two people who are saying, I'm trying to book my vacation. I want to know if we're starting before Labor Day. And my answer always has to be, well, I can't answer that. We have to see how the community votes. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:And isn't that one of the reasons that your department, your office is switching to that, to your calendar so that families have more time to look ahead?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah. That's having the two years out will allow people to better plan for any future dates. I know when you're if you are booking a large vacation, if you are trying to see your family who may live far away, we we are a transient community here. Then having that advanced notice makes it a lot easier to plan those trips and to book better vacation prices and flight prices, all of that.
SPEAKER_01:So from an operational standpoint from Chesapeake Public Schools, a lot goes on in the summer. We have HVAC systems that have to be replaced. There's contracts. So can you share a little bit about how that also goes into creating the calendar with the pre and the post-Labor Day comparison?
SPEAKER_00:So if you were driving around Chesapeake this summer, you probably saw a few parking lots being constructed. You could see the construction that's happening in our buildings, which is a great thing. We are enhancing our buildings. We want those innovative, modern learning environments. And the way that we do that is we have children and employees out of the building in order to do that. I remember in August driving past a school and wondering, wow, I hope they have the bus ramp completed in time by the time students come back. And they did, but they had it probably prepared. I know they were working on Labor Day weekend. Yep. That would they were finishing the work then. So when we say that every week, every day counts over the summer, it does. And these projects are planned out in advance, a year in advance. Our contracts are set years in advance, and those contractors depend on every bit of time that they can get. When school lets out, they have a team coming in immediately, getting out the furniture, clearing out this, making sure the parking lot is cleared. And they are working the next day, and they are working up until the first day when our children come back. And that's that's not when our employees come back. Our employees come back in the second week in August. So they're navigating the lumpy bark uh parking lot before our kids are arriving. So it is it is not something that we're trying to inflate in that we need every bit of time and we need every bit of notice in order to plan these large projects. And that doesn't even include the work that's done to prepare the technology. Our students, we have our one-to-one Chromebooks. Unfortunately, some of those get dropped. You know, some of them are broken. Our techs need as much time over the summer to make sure that those tools are ready when our children arrive back at school. Transportation routing, people are moving, routes change every single year. Our transportation needs time to figure out those routes. School nutrition, the amount of work that's done. And once a building is done with construction, that building needs to get cleaned. So our custodial services need to get in there and they need their time as well. So there's so much work done over the summer. And at the same time, we have schools that are running summer school and we need time to get through summer school and we need to time to process the results of summer school as well. So lots of work is being done.
SPEAKER_02:I had no idea that our school calendar touches so many different programs and departments and all, you know, nine months before we even think about going home for the summer. We're already planning all these projects. And I know, like you said, we've got contracts with vendors and construction companies, and we're guaranteeing them a certain amount of days or hours that they can be on the roof to complete those projects. So great for your department to be able to reach out to to all aspects of Chesapeake Public Schools to make sure that everyone's needs are met over the summer. It must be a huge endeavor to put together a school calendar.
SPEAKER_01:Now, let's look at this year. Let's go right into this year's calendar. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Bring it, Matt. Here we go. Let's get down to the nuts and bulls.
SPEAKER_01:This year, or sorry, not this year. Let's look at next year's calendar. Next year's calendar. Next year, we're pretty much fixed. Can you tell us why are we have that fixed sort of option for next year? Great question.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's not that we didn't explore other options. We created uh other options that had different start dates and different end dates. Having a different start date would really severely and negatively impact our summer work. So that was something that as much as we would love to be able to offer that, it is just not feasible for us to do. It seems like this is advanced notice, but as I said, those contracts are actually already set. So it's something that we really couldn't even explore much further than what we did. We had another option that had more of the lengthened breaks, which we we love the the day off ahead of Thanksgiving, and we love the 10-day weekdays uh off for winter break, but that got us out at the end, and I'm talking about like the last day in June. Wow. And yes, and that is something again that impacts our summer again. Sure. Because now we're cutting into the front of summer, and also at that point, we're ready to get going on summer. Our families want to be off, our children want to be off. So that was another option where it was something that we really couldn't pursue further. It cuts into the summertime, it it it ends at a time that families don't prefer.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And plus there's that preparation piece from the year that you were saying they to inform the families and and our staff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. If we would have done something like that, this would have impacted people's plans that they have. Our calendar is consistent to an extent. So people do count on that last week in June being off. And then all of a sudden we'd say, Surprise, we're still gonna be in school. And surprise, we're starting two weeks earlier than what you thought. So make adjustments to those vacations and camp plans and child care plans that you had. That wouldn't go over well.
SPEAKER_02:No, Dr. Graham, I couldn't imagine as a former elementary school principal, I couldn't imagine being in school all the way until the third or the fourth week of June. I know that often in elementary school, when that calendar turns the page from May to June, uh, kids are squirrely. They are squirrely in June. They're right. We're doing everything. We all are. We're doing everything we can to keep those, uh, to keep everyone engaged, highly engaging activities in our classrooms. A lot of times our SOL testing program is finished with the state of Virginia. And so that would be a real challenge to go that late in the year. I think also our high schoolers, especially our graduating seniors, uh, some of those universities are already having orientation programs with those, with the students that are going off to be freshmen at the college level. And those are happening in those first weeks of June as well. I know that in the elementary world, we talk about a 180-day school schedule, right? In high school, I am less familiar, but I think you referenced something like seat time. Is that what is that what that's called?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So tell us more about that. This is something that also is a little special for Chesapeake because we have a four by four schedule.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So we have some benefits with that. That means that our high school students get through eight courses in a year. Um, that allows some of our high school students to graduate early or to take advanced courses that they might not have been able to with a more of a traditional full year seven block schedule. But then there's a drawback to it because we are fitting eight classes in where other districts may be fitting in only seven. We have to really be we have to conserve our time to make sure that we're able to distribute that same amount of time among eight classes instead of seven. But still, it's very important to Chesapeake Public Schools. It is very important to Dr. Cotton. It's his word that he signs off, that we have met the requirements. He does not want to rely on a waiver. He wants to fulfill the expectations and what's mandated of him, and he does it. And he and he holds that's why we're open 180 days. It's his word signing off that we have provided this much time, these opportunities to our kids.
SPEAKER_01:And and every year we do have bank days, and then we also have our elementary teacher work days. Correct. With that, can you explain a little bit about why the elementary has a teacher workday and what the bank days are like and how that works?
SPEAKER_00:Well, our elementary is they don't have seat time requirements. Okay. Okay. So with that, there's a balance between 180 days or 990 hours. And we we exceed 990 hours. That's why we're able to have 177 school days for children, and we're allowed to give our elementary teachers three more workdays. And boy, they need more than three more workdays because they are in constant supervision of their children. They are escorting the kids to lunch and going to pick them up. So even that cuts into their lunchtime. So, with that said, the three days is about the minimum that we could do to make up for that. And they are utilizing every bit of that time with their planning that they do. And that that's why the elementary teachers get that. It is not something that isn't an outstanding benefit that that they uh get to hold above the heads of middle school and high school teachers. For sure. Um now, and that's that's not to discredit our middle school and high school teachers. They they are incredibly strapped for planning time as well. But our elementary teachers, they they really need that time. And what we used to do in the past was we scattered through several half days. And that is something that our families they would just rather have one day off than three half days. Because that planning is very difficult and it's more disruptive. So that's how we landed on the three extra teacher workday for our elementary community.
SPEAKER_02:So, Dr. Graham, you take all of this research, you take uh a look at the calendar and consider the number of days and the number of hours and all of our different programs and our summer work that has to happen, and you put all that together and you propose a calendar to the community and to the school board. How do you get all that input? I know that's I mean, that's just thinking about it is daunting to me. I'm sweating just thinking about it.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, and hearing all this too, as an employee, I don't I didn't know at all. I'm learning about piggyback on that. How does how do you do it?
SPEAKER_00:We literally have a spreadsheet that goes through every single day, 180 days plus our extra 10 teacher work days, and we are counting the hours of every day. When we have an early release day, we are adjusting the hours for that day. If we have a day off because of uh snow or inclement weather, we're adjusting the hours for that. And we are counting to the minute in this chart to make sure that we're fulfilling our requirements.
SPEAKER_01:So Do we have a math background? I mean, it seems like you might have a math background. Maybe so.
SPEAKER_00:Yep, yep. We used to teach high school math, and luckily my I have a teammate who also taught high school math. So I'm very fortunate for that. And I have an outstanding administrative assistant who is a whiz with these sheets. So actually, I rely on her for that. Yes.
SPEAKER_02:I think a big misconception, Dr. Graham, is that this happens in five minutes and just comes together and you're just like, boop, here's the calendar. But that is so far from the case. And I'm so thrilled that you've walked us through all of the hard work that you and your team do in the background up until the moment that you're presenting to the board.
SPEAKER_00:And to add on to that, it's not just that my team is in a close room working on this. So we poll the community. We were at the get on the bus event passing out little magnet calendars, but also asking our communities. We had an option up and we had a big draft over it. So we were like, what if this came forward? What do you think? And we got their feedback. And what was interesting was they were looking at the calendar and saying, this is not a great calendar, but I still don't want to start before Labor Day. So that was the the feedback that we got from that, is that they still prefer the post-Labor Day. And one of the ones that the feedback that stood with me was, you know, I don't know why. I just think that I like starting after Labor Day because I always know when the first day of school is.
SPEAKER_02:I get that. Yeah, it's simple.
SPEAKER_00:You always know it's always the day after Labor Day.
SPEAKER_02:And so you have to balance all those negotiables and all the non-negotiables from the state and from uh from all those other, all those other inputs.
SPEAKER_00:Our perspective is that we we hold on to what is mandated of us, but then we try to get as much feedback as we can. Another thing that we did this year, which was super valuable, is that we took the calendar proposal after we got the feedback from our community and took the options and sent it to several directors, for example, the director of transportation and send it out to the director of new construction, teaching and learning, teaching and learning, you know, them. Plus, we send it out to several of our principals. Sure. And said, take a look at it, use any perspective, your employee perspective, your parent perspective, community perspective, and just tell us what you think. And the feedback that we got was was incredible from them because from New Construction, I heard, oh no, if we start before Labor Day, this is really gonna mess up the plans that we have for this new building. When I'm in this work and I'm diving in, I begin to see things a certain way. And I need other people to tell me this is how I see it, and then we can we can make it so that it is understood.
SPEAKER_02:So that proposed calendar is published. We did that last night at the school board meeting. So what are you hoping for from our community when it comes to taking a look at that proposed calendar and providing feedback?
SPEAKER_00:I hope that if they didn't see the presentation, that they take a look at the presentation. It's LinkedIn to that survey. The presentation really explains a lot. I don't want anyone to feel like we made the calendar in isolation and we were tired and we just felt like putting out one option because we just that's it. That's what you get. Because that is not, that is not how we just do it.
SPEAKER_02:So far from the case, so far from the tree.
SPEAKER_00:If they could just look at the presentation and we put several times the links because I really want people to take a look at the calendars in a in a nice open view. So if you're in a computer, click on that link. If you're a phone, zoom in on those images, spend some time, take a look at those calendars, and then go ahead and make your decision. But really overall, I really just want people to participate. The more people we can hear from, the the more valid that survey is. And we want you to know that we read your feedback. When we put a short answer response where we allow for typing and giving your feedback, we did that for a reason. It's not a placeholder. We're not ignoring it. We don't put a lot of them on there. And that's because we really want to process the feedback that you're providing us. So we read your feedback. It is important to us. And we, again, we're not doing this work because we want to do harm. We're doing this work because we want to help support our community and meet our community's needs.
SPEAKER_01:I want to thank you so much for coming in and basically sharing everything that goes into taking a creating account.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that we often underestimate how much goes into putting that calendar together. So, all of our families, all of our listeners, make sure that you are looking for your input survey. You'll find it in the family updates and on the Chesapeake Schools website, www.cpschools.com. And make sure that you give your input so that Dr. Graham and Dr. Cotton and the school board can make an informed decision about where we want to go for gosh, 25. That's this year, 25, 26. That one's already done for 26, 27, and 27, 28. That's the first time. I should have a flying car by the time we get to 2728, right?
SPEAKER_01:And I think and I think that surveys open through October 19th. Correct. Is that right? So, families, you heard it. Uh, we look at everything, all the feedback when making the decision. So thank you, Dr. Graham, for coming in and sharing all the nuances with creating the calendar.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for letting me share. Being able to share here really helps me explain the work that I do better than a three-minute board presentation. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02:And we'll see you next time on Amplified.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. We hope you enjoyed the stories behind our story on this episode of Amplified, the Chesapeake Public Schools podcast. Connect with us at cpschools.com forward slash amplified, and be sure to subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
