Religious holidays removed by name from school calendar

[Borgholio]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/edu ... story.html

Christmas and Easter have been stricken from next year’s school calendar in Montgomery County. So have Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

Montgomery’s Board of Education voted 7 to 1 Tuesday to eliminate references to all religious holidays on the published calendar for 2015-2016, a decision that followed a request from Muslim community leaders to give equal billing to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha.

In practical terms, Montgomery schools will still be closed for the Christian and Jewish holidays, as in previous years, and students will still get the same days off, as planned.

Board members said Tuesday that the new calendar will reflect days the state requires the system to be closed and that it will close on other days that have shown a high level of student and staff absenteeism. Though those days happen to coincide with major Christian and Jewish holidays, board members made clear that the days off are not meant to observe those religious holidays, which they say is not legally permitted.

The main and most noticeable difference will be that the published calendar will not mention any religious holidays by name.

Muslim community leaders have been asking Montgomery school officials for years to close schools for at least one of the two major Muslim holidays.

It is unclear how many Muslim students attend Montgomery schools, but in 2013, Muslim community leaders urged Muslim families and their supporters to keep students home for Eid ­al-Adha, hoping that the number of absentees would be persuasive as they made their case for a school closing. Montgomery school officials reported that absences for that day — 5.6 percent of students and 5 percent of teachers — were only somewhat higher than a comparable day the previous week.

Students who miss classes on religious holidays are given excused absences. But Muslim families have argued that students should not have to choose between their faith and their schoolwork and that missing even a day leaves many students behind. They say the day off is a matter of equity, with Christian and Jewish students getting days off for their holidays.

But Tuesday’s outcome was not at all what Muslim leaders intended. They called the decision a surprise — and a glaring mistake.

“By stripping the names Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they have alienated other communities now, and we are no closer to equality,” said Saqib Ali, a former Maryland state delegate and co-chair of the Equality for Eid Coalition. “It’s a pretty drastic step, and they did it without any public notification.”

Zainab Chaudry, also a co-chair of the coalition, expressed dismay, too, contending the school board’s members were willing to “go so far as to paint themselves as the Grinch who stole Christmas” to avoid granting equal treatment for the Muslim holiday.

“They would remove the Christian holidays and they would remove the Jewish holidays from the calendar before they would consider adding the Muslim holiday to the calendar,” she said.

Muslim leaders had focused their efforts for the next school year on having the holiday of Eid ­al-Adha recognized with equal prominence on the published school calendar because the holiday falls on the same day as Yom Kippur, when Montgomery schools are already closed. They had said the step was symbolic but important.

Superintendent Joshua P. Starr presented the board with three options to resolve the question Tuesday, and a majority of members supported his recommended proposal to do away with the names of both the Muslim and the Jewish holidays on the calendar. But amending the proposal, the board opted to ditch references to Christmas and Easter, too.

Board members pointed to the Fairfax County school system’s calendar as an example; the largest school district in Virginia does not call out such religious holidays by name. In Montgomery, closing schools for Jewish holidays began in the 1970s. In voting to scrub the holiday names from the calendar, board members said they were trying to reflect the reason schools are closed on religious holidays: because of operational impacts — such as expected high absenteeism among students and staff on those days — not because the school system is observing a religious occasion.

“This seems the most equitable option,” said board member Rebecca Smondrowski (District 2), who offered the amendment.

Board members talked at length about not wishing to disrespect the Muslim community or those from other faiths. Muslim community members and their supporters packed the meeting room.

Several board members pledged to produce a clearer standard for the kind of operational impacts that might lead to further consideration of closing schools on a Muslim holiday in the future. The calendar change Tuesday affects only the next school year.

Board member Michael A. Durso (District 5) was the sole vote against the calendar change. During the board’s discussion, he noted that Montgomery brags about its diversity and its embrace of different cultures. “No matter how well-intentioned we are, it comes off as insensitive” to Muslim families, he said.

School officials said the time off in December would become “winter break,” while the time off around the Easter holiday would be called “spring break.” Other days, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, would be simply listed as a day when there is “no school for students and teachers.”

Cue conservative outrage in 3...2...1...

[Thanas]

So instead of giving a holy day to the muslims, they voted to abolish all of them - then still have de facto christian holidays.

Huh.

[Borgholio]

Yeah that's what I read into it myself. Rather than give a Muslim holiday (alongside existing Christian and Jewish holidays), they take their ball and go home...so to speak...by just getting rid of all holidays entirely. Now everybody is pissed. It probably would have been easier just to quietly add the Muslim holiday to the calendar and leave it at that.

Edit - in retrospect, the title is actually inaccurate. Would a mod be able to correct it? Thanks!

[ArmorPierce]

Unless I am mistaken, the title is inaccurate. Muslims asked for their holiday to be added to the calendar lime Christmas. The response was to remove Christmas from the calendar.

[Borgholio]

Unless I am mistaken, the title is inaccurate. Muslims asked for their holiday to be added to the calendar lime Christmas. The response was to remove Christmas from the calendar.

Beat you to it.

[SCRawl]

As per Borgholio's request, I have modified the thread title. I would have made it more specific, but I wouldn't have enough characters to fully summarize the article.

[Borgholio]

Thank you kindly!

[Darmalus]

I can see the logic behind it. The Muslim asks for their holidays to be added, school board draws up a draft of the new calendar and people notice it's starting to look a bit crowded. Someone asks what about the next religion that asks to have their holidays added, pointing out that there are several more unrepresented religions that exist in their district. People recoil from the idea of a school calendar that is practically a wall-to-wall list of religious holidays, decide it's not their job to list everyone's holiday and removes the existing ones in the name of equality.

[General Zod]

If you give the Muslims a holiday the terrorists win.

[SCRawl]

A similar thing happened here (Ontario, Canada, in 2005), but for a different institution. There used to be Christian and Jewish religious tribunals to settle civil disputes, provided all parties agreed to resolve their disputes there. Then Muslims then wanted to have Sharia tribunals, and the government at the time basically said "No religious tribunals for anyone".

[Elheru Aran]

I can see including Eid on the calendar as it's one of the biggest Muslim holidays out there, especially if there are enough Muslims in the district that it would affect them. Rejecting that idea and ditching all other holidays in name only is pretty much a straight-up act of spite.

As far as the 'where does it stop' argument goes: Demographics. If your population is 70% Christian/Jewish, 20% Muslim and 10% Other (just an example), well, the other folks might be out of luck because once you break it down to individual faiths there just wouldn't be enough kids from those faiths in the schools to justify giving the entire district a holiday. There's enough Muslims that all the kids leaving school for a few days' holiday would dent numbers a bit. Other districts would obviously have different demographics and would juggle their holidays differently.

Rather, allow schools to issue an individual religious exemption to students in order to permit families to observe their holidays together (with a proviso that they still have to finish their schoolwork on time). That way the school maintains its schedule and the kids get to observe whatever faith they hold by using the equivalent of a doctor's note.

In general as long as the school maintains a summer and a winter break, my jimmies are not terribly rustled about the rest of the semesters' schedule...

[Ahriman238]

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you'd asked me as a student if I minded taking a day off for Eid al-Fitr and/or al-Adha, it would've taken me a while to stop laughing. A day off from school is a day off from school. As an adult and a teacher, it may be a minor hassle to make up the day in June, but probably worth it to give the kids some appreciation of minority culture.

[SCRawl]

I don't know about this school district, but giving students another day off school might not be an option. Some school boards are constrained by law to provide a minimum number of hours of instruction, which effectively means a minimum number of days. The beginning and end of the school year is often similarly constrained, as are the number of professional activity days for the staff. My daughters' school actually ran up against those constraints once, and I'm not sure how they resolved it.

I'm not saying that these constraints are a problem in this case, but it wouldn't surprise me if there simply isn't a day to spare in the calendar for another holiday.

[Purple]

Well they can always make it so that it's a day you have to work off during a saturday or something.

[Elheru Aran]

I don't know about this school district, but giving students another day off school might not be an option. Some school boards are constrained by law to provide a minimum number of hours of instruction, which effectively means a minimum number of days. The beginning and end of the school year is often similarly constrained, as are the number of professional activity days for the staff.

This is frequently the case either upon the state or the local level. Generally the state Secretary of Education office provides a broad outline and the local districts interpret it according to their situation. There's normally a number of flex days included to allow for inclement weather or other unplanned situations that prevent normal operations as well. However, there's not a whole lot of flex provided beyond that, and changes take some time to implement. Partisan politics do play quite a bit as well, as this thread provides an example.

[Simon_Jester]

Also, the calendar restrictions get progressively more strict year by year. Montgomery County is the rich northern lobe of the D.C. suburbs. That's a lot of parents who get angry if their kids get "not enough" of any given educational service.

I don't know if that actually had an impact, but it is a concern, especially since in the D.C. area we get quite a few snow days and that can have unpredictable effects on the school year in a bad year.

[This is not because the suburbs of Washington get that much heavy snow. It's because we aren't really equipped to handle the logistics of getting all the kids into schools in the face of anything but the lightest snowfall. Traffic goes ape, and the shoveling/plowing equipment we have has trouble keeping school parking lots and school walkways clear. So we end up with days off under conditions that a school in Massachusetts would probably laugh at.]

[Vejut]

I agree it seems like a bit of a spiteful dick move.

That said, while I'm more familiar with Calvert County(dad works the school system there), I believe Maryland in general is one of the states with a minimum instructional days rule, as we've run up against it in previous years (specifically, last year with all the snow days), as while they planned a few extra possible days at the end, plus shortened spring breaks, they used up the flex from that and still needed more days. Montgomery has a different school system than Calvert, but probably works under similar rules, and may not have the days. Could probably steal a few days from Columbus day or the like though.

[Flagg]

I can see the logic behind it. The Muslim asks for their holidays to be added, school board draws up a draft of the new calendar and people notice it's starting to look a bit crowded. Someone asks what about the next religion that asks to have their holidays added, pointing out that there are several more unrepresented religions that exist in their district. People recoil from the idea of a school calendar that is practically a wall-to-wall list of religious holidays, decide it's not their job to list everyone's holiday and removes the existing ones in the name of equality.

No, not even close. They aren't going to remove the days off from school, they are just changing their names "wink" "wink" so as to placate the filthy terrorists. And Christmas and Easter are covered anyway since kids don't go to School on Sundays, and Christmas is usually in the middle of a winter break.

[Raw Shark]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/edu ... story.html

[snip] Muslim leaders had focused their efforts for the next school year on having the holiday of Eid ­al-Adha recognized with equal prominence on the published school calendar because the holiday falls on the same day as Yom Kippur, when Montgomery schools are already closed. They had said the step was symbolic but important.

Bolding mine, with regard to running up against scheduling minimums. This was really just about not wanting to add the words Eid al-Adha to an existing day off.

[SCRawl]

Bolding mine, with regard to running up against scheduling minimums. This was really just about not wanting to add the words Eid al-Adha to an existing day off.

That may be true for this school year, but what about next year if they don't coincide? The question would be asked: "But we got the holiday last year, why can't we have it this year?" And if the schedule can't bear an extra day off, what gets chopped instead in the name of minority accommodation?

[Raw Shark]

Bolding mine, with regard to running up against scheduling minimums. This was really just about not wanting to add the words Eid al-Adha to an existing day off.

That may be true for this school year, but what about next year if they don't coincide? The question would be asked: "But we got the holiday last year, why can't we have it this year?" And if the schedule can't bear an extra day off, what gets chopped instead in the name of minority accommodation?

Eid al-Adha is always the same day as Yom Kippur. It's the tenth day of the same month on a lunar calendar (except it's the first month for the Jews and the last for Muslims).

[SCRawl]

Eid al-Adha is always the same day as Yom Kippur. It's the tenth day of the same month on a lunar calendar (except it's the first month for the Jews and the last for Muslims).

With that being the case, this then sounds a great deal like dickishness on the part of the school. The two solutions to the problem seem to have been: 1. Labels for everyone (at no cost other than a small amount of toner), or 2. Labels for no-one, because dirty terrorists.

So, yeah, fuck them.

[Raw Shark]

Eid al-Adha is always the same day as Yom Kippur. It's the tenth day of the same month on a lunar calendar (except it's the first month for the Jews and the last for Muslims).

With that being the case, this then sounds a great deal like dickishness on the part of the school. The two solutions to the problem seem to have been: 1. Labels for everyone (at no cost other than a small amount of toner), or 2. Labels for no-one, because dirty terrorists.

So, yeah, fuck them.

In fairness, I can also imagine pure cowardice or some combination of the two being the cause. They might've gotten about as far in the debate as, "Shit, how do we decide who goes on the calendar first, Grandfather Clause or Alphabetical? Either way, at least 5% of the parents and probably a few Christians are totally pissed. Surely we can opt out of this somehow!?"

[eyl]

Bolding mine, with regard to running up against scheduling minimums. This was really just about not wanting to add the words Eid al-Adha to an existing day off.

That may be true for this school year, but what about next year if they don't coincide? The question would be asked: "But we got the holiday last year, why can't we have it this year?" And if the schedule can't bear an extra day off, what gets chopped instead in the name of minority accommodation?

Eid al-Adha is always the same day as Yom Kippur. It's the tenth day of the same month on a lunar calendar (except it's the first month for the Jews and the last for Muslims).

No it's not, they coincide every 33 years (IINM this is because the Jewish calender includes an extra short month every several years to synchronize it with the seasons).

[Raw Shark]

No it's not, they coincide every 33 years (IINM this is because the Jewish calender includes an extra short month every several years to synchronize it with the seasons).

I stand corrected.