More Districts Closing on Muslim Holidays
IN Paterson, there has been no school on Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur for years. But now the schools are also closed on the Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr (the end of the month of fasting for Ramadan) and Eid al-Adha (the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca).
Prospect Park schools generally close for the first and last days of Ramadan and Eid al-Adha.
Atlantic City added two Muslim holidays to its school calendar in the last three years.
And this year, for the first time, Cliffside Park will close Thursday to observe the end of Ramadan.
With significant demographic changes taking place in many communities, school officials struggle annually with the school calendar. The movement toward Muslim holidays is small but growing in New Jersey.
The shift to Muslim holidays is not widespread in the region, despite sizable Muslim populations in some cities. The school board associations on Long Island and in Connecticut and Westchester said they knew of no districts that closed for Muslim holidays.
But New Jersey, with a Muslim population estimated at 400,000, has been different. Districts like Paterson probably have thousands of Muslim students, said Hani Y. Awadallah, a chemistry professor at Montclair State University and president of the 10-year-old Arab American Civic Organization.
This is really a trend that is taking off, Dr. Awadallah said of the school holidays. I think you will see this across the country.
Twenty years ago it was not unusual for many districts to have only the Christian holidays on their calendars, and districts with high Jewish populations also took off on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, said Barry Ersek, interim executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators.
While the state and education associations do not track holiday calendars in schools, educators agree that many more districts have added Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in the last 10 years and about a dozen districts have added Muslim holidays.
Its based on community needs, and every community is different, Dr. Ersek said. You have to be sensitive to your community and their needs. The calendar can be controversial.
Each year the State Department of Education releases a new list of religious holidays for which students may have an excused absence if they are using the day for religious purposes. The list this year has more than 75 holidays, including All Saints Day, the Hindu Ganesha Chaturthi, Kwanzaa, Passover, Buddahs birthday and Armenian Memorial Day.
The list keeps growing, said Mike Yaple, spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. Several years ago it was four dozen; now its over 70.
In Passaic, days off to observe holidays have included Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Deepavali, a Hindu celebration. Some years, the district has also observed Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, in January.
Being a very diverse district, its a challenge to make our calendar each year, said Robert H. Holster, the Passaic superintendent. About 84 percent of the districts 13,000 students in prekindergarten through high school are Hispanic, with the rest being Indian or African-American, he said. And there is a growing community of Orthodox Jewish families using the preschool program, Dr. Holster said.
The student population is not the only consideration when setting days off. Its no longer just the students, Dr. Holster said. Its the staffing. If I had school on a Jewish holiday, Id need at least 100 substitutes.
PATERSON and Trenton were among the first districts to observe Muslim holidays. Trenton began taking off a day for the end of Ramadan in the early 1990s. Paterson put Eid al-Fitr on its calendar in the mid-1990s. In 1999, a second Muslim holiday was added, said Laura Constable, district spokeswoman. She estimated that 5 percent of the students are of Arabic descent.
Administrators wrestle with the calendar every year, said Michael E. Glascoe, Patersons superintendent. Our population is so diverse, and we dont want to slight any one group, he said.
Districts like Cliffside Park that added a Muslim holiday have come a long way, said Afsheen Shamsi, community relations director for the New Jersey office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
We are hoping that more school districts will take off the Muslim holidays, she said. America is a country where we bring together people of diverse faiths. New Jersey is a great state and attracts people of diverse backgrounds.
Dr. Glascoe, the Paterson superintendent, said that in the past two years he had not had complaints from parents but that some administrators and teachers did not like all the interruptions in instruction that resulted from days off.
Dr. Awadallah, of the Arab American Civic Organization, said the issue was not about a school celebrating holidays, but about students missing instruction time. Montclair State administrators have asked Dr. Awadallah to inform colleagues each year about the Muslim holidays to make them sensitive to scheduling tests or events that would be hard to make up.
When a school district votes to take a holiday, it is not an endorsement or a celebration, said Richard Vespucci, spokesman for the State Department of Education. Districts see trends in their populations and take off when the school day will be affected because a number of staff members or students will be gone.
We are a very diverse state in every sense, including geography, economics, religion, he said.
Four years ago, Prospect Park decided to take off the first and last days of Ramadan, said James F. Barriale, the superintendent. About 25 percent of the 840 students in the district, which is prekindergarten through eighth grade, are Muslim, he said.
We started to look at the trends and number of students absent, he said. We were reteaching a lot of the lessons, and then you are basically wasting the day. We received compliments on this. Now the kids arent missing lessons.
More Districts Closing on Muslim Holidays
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