MCPS Removes Religious Holiday Designations from School Calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

MCPS can't place ALL the religious holidays on the calendar. Nor should it. There is no need for any religious holidays to be on the calendar.

Yet, MCPS has placed religious holidays for Jewish and Christian religions on the calendar all these years. They only removed them to avoid having to list a Muslim holiday. MCPS should apologize and place the Muslim holiday on the calendar. Their response to this whole thing was awful. I'm embarrassed by this school system.

The reason was bad. But the result was good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ except the "special" "American" ones, right?

Wrong -- assuming you're referring to Christmas and Easter.

Or are you referring to Thanksgiving? I don't have a problem with Thanksgiving being on the calendar, but I also don't have a problem with Thanksgiving being off the calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

New poster here. There is so much emotion surrounding this issue, and the decisionmakers failed to see that. They thought it was about listing a Muslim holiday (which was the modest request) but the slippery-slope people said, "But if we do that, we have to list every holiday..." so they took everything off, thus stirring up more anger and even prejudice than anyone anticipated.

Agree that this was horribly,horribly handled. What was the big list of adding another Holiday name on the list of days off if the holiday happened to fall on that day? This would have been such an easy accommodation that non-Muslims would not have cared about at all and Muslims would have felt included.

If Hindus later came up and wanted Diwali listed on the calendar then why would that be a terrify slippery slope? This is an educational system for Christ's sake. We are supposed to be teaching children that there is diversity in our world, people celebrate different faiths and have different cultures.

As it stands now, MCPS just looks racists toward non Christian and Jewish families. Erasing all the holidays just makes it looks that someone MCPS couldn't stand the idea of Christian and Jewish holidays being listed with Muslim holidays, so they'd rather not have any listed.

The only right thing for MCPS to do at this point is to apologize and place the all the holidays on the calendar. Starr could send a nicely worded email to students showing them how he learned a lesson, was wrong, and learned that when you are wrong you can make it right. Of course, this will never happen because Starr can only boast about amazing he is and how people should never say insensitive things to him.

Except Mike Durso, the only board member with sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

New poster here. There is so much emotion surrounding this issue, and the decisionmakers failed to see that. They thought it was about listing a Muslim holiday (which was the modest request) but the slippery-slope people said, "But if we do that, we have to list every holiday..." so they took everything off, thus stirring up more anger and even prejudice than anyone anticipated.

Agree that this was horribly,horribly handled. What was the big list of adding another Holiday name on the list of days off if the holiday happened to fall on that day? This would have been such an easy accommodation that non-Muslims would not have cared about at all and Muslims would have felt included.

If Hindus later came up and wanted Diwali listed on the calendar then why would that be a terrify slippery slope? This is an educational system for Christ's sake. We are supposed to be teaching children that there is diversity in our world, people celebrate different faiths and have different cultures.

As it stands now, MCPS just looks racists toward non Christian and Jewish families. Erasing all the holidays just makes it looks that someone MCPS couldn't stand the idea of Christian and Jewish holidays being listed with Muslim holidays, so they'd rather not have any listed.

The only right thing for MCPS to do at this point is to apologize and place the all the holidays on the calendar. Starr could send a nicely worded email to students showing them how he learned a lesson, was wrong, and learned that when you are wrong you can make it right. Of course, this will never happen because Starr can only boast about amazing he is and how people should never say insensitive things to him.

Except Mike Durso, the only board member with sense.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Agree that this was horribly,horribly handled. What was the big list of adding another Holiday name on the list of days off if the holiday happened to fall on that day? This would have been such an easy accommodation that non-Muslims would not have cared about at all and Muslims would have felt included.

If Hindus later came up and wanted Diwali listed on the calendar then why would that be a terrify slippery slope? This is an educational system for Christ's sake. We are supposed to be teaching children that there is diversity in our world, people celebrate different faiths and have different cultures.

As it stands now, MCPS just looks racists toward non Christian and Jewish families. Erasing all the holidays just makes it looks that someone MCPS couldn't stand the idea of Christian and Jewish holidays being listed with Muslim holidays, so they'd rather not have any listed.

The only right thing for MCPS to do at this point is to apologize and place the all the holidays on the calendar. Starr could send a nicely worded email to students showing them how he learned a lesson, was wrong, and learned that when you are wrong you can make it right. Of course, this will never happen because Starr can only boast about amazing he is and how people should never say insensitive things to him.

MCPS can't place ALL the religious holidays on the calendar. Nor should it. There is no need for any religious holidays to be on the calendar.

Holton-Arms is a secular school and it places every holiday under the sun on it's calendar. They don't have off for any (even Jewish holidays, Easter Monday) but they are all posted. We are supposed to teach cultural and religious awareness to end bigotry. Taking them all away almost seems to shame it.

[Anonymous]

The weird thing is that the Muslim holiday, Eid El-Adha, WAS on the calendar. It just was noted as a parenthetical (Eid al-Adha is also celebrated today) and the request was to move it over one column in the spreadsheet so it shared the same box as Yom Kippur. It was a minor (but unbelievably petty) request. Better than in years past.
And now we've got nothing. I don't really care as long as I know when school is closed, but...it was handled in a very callous way. People (especially Joshua Starr, who suggested stripping ONLY the Jewish holidays from the calendar) were brainless. Maybe this will blow over in time. But the hurt feelings will wrankle.
Still, what a stupid request. i don't get it at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Holton-Arms is a secular school and it places every holiday under the sun on it's calendar. They don't have off for any (even Jewish holidays, Easter Monday) but they are all posted. We are supposed to teach cultural and religious awareness to end bigotry. Taking them all away almost seems to shame it.

Holton Arms is a private school. Also, here is the calendar that is comparable to the MCPS calendar:

holton-arms.edu/uploaded/documents/holton_2014_2015_calendar.pdf

I don't see every holiday under the sun.