The school committee in Cambridge, Mass., stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy when it voted in October to include a Muslim holiday on its academic calendar. Though not particularly controversial among local residents, this change earned the ire of Bill O’Reilly, who asked his Fox News viewers, “Are we going to give Hindus a holiday, are we going to do the Wiccan thing?”
Earlier this month, the school committee in Acton-Boxborough, a Boston suburb, voted to close its schools on a Christian holiday (Good Friday) and two Jewish holidays (Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah). In the bordering district in Harvard, Mass., the school committee voted last week to scrap religious holidays altogether.
Elsewhere across America, public school districts are wrestling with whether the First Amendment requires inclusion or exclusion when it comes to recognizing religious holy days.Should school districts reflect the growing diversity of their student bodies by including more religions’ holy days? Or does the Constitution demand that public schools exclude days off for religion altogether?
Yes! If a child has a religious reason to be at a eucharist for a big feast day, you write a note to the attendance secretary. That takes care of the 5 out of 7 years Christmas falls on a weekday. The children of unbelievers won’t miss a thing. Easter usually isn’t a problem.
I don’t have a major problem with schools including religious holidays from other faiths on the calendar. Personally, I think when things like that occur, everybody wins. You don’t have to celebrate the holiday in your own home, just because the school system is being respectful. I would much rather deal with a school system that is willing to accommodate religions any day than have a system that fights religious observance tooth and nail and ruin things for everybody because of militant secularism.
Fo4 crying out loud~!
Even as far back as the early 70s, Jewish children were allowed to miss “High Holy Days”. BUT, the schools didn’t close.. I dont think there were any muslims back then but no one would have flipped their cork about it. Now, I’m talking about schools right here in SC.
Christmas was not a problem for anyone that I remember. Perhaps because the majority of the students were of “christian” background.
The reason I remember so clearly, is because my two “boys (now in their fifties) always wanted to claim they were “jewish”… Since when can’t community standard apply?
Grandmother in SC
I suppose the teachers will also be happy to work without getting holiday pay for the days (or time and a half or whatever you do in the US) …. Yeah Right!!!!