Fairfax County, Schools Make 2021 Inauguration Day A Holiday

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — The Fairfax County School Board voted to designate Inauguration Day as a student and staff holiday. The county's Board of Supervisors also authorized Inauguration Day as a holiday for county employees on the 2021 calendar.

Fairfax County Public Schools typically designates the holiday when it comes around every four years. The next presidential inauguration will happen on Jan. 20, 2021.

The school board also designated June 18, 2021 as a staff holiday to celebrate Juneteenth, which will fall on Saturday, June 19, 2021. Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when news of the Emancipation Proclamation made it to the last state, marking the end of slavery in the United States. Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.

This year, Juneteenth was included as a holiday by FCPS and by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors as a holiday for county employees. After Gov. Ralph Northam announced his intention to make Juneteenth a state holiday, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation to observe Juneteenth as an official holiday for state employees.

FCPS had designated Election Day on Nov. 3 as a student holiday. New Virginia legislation eliminated January's Lee-Jackson Day as a state holiday and replaced it with Election Day in November.

Below are other key dates to know for the rest of the academic year.

• Nov. 25-27: Thanksgiving
• Dec. 21-Jan. 1: Winter break, classes resume on Jan. 4
• Jan. 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• Jan. 22: Inauguration Day
• Jan. 25: Student holiday/teacher workday
• Feb. 15: George Washington's Birthday and Presidents' Day
• March 8: Student holiday/staff development day
• March 29-April 2: Spring break
• April 5: Student holiday/teacher workday
• May 31: Memorial Day
• June 11: Last day of school, early release