Reply to Earlier start date proposed for MCPS

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
With no numbers for Muslims, it's not meaningful. I guess you are trying to assert that the Muslim population has grown along with county population, but that's certainly not a given. The population may have fallen. And if it didn't grow 6% or more, then the percentage didn't increase. Point is, the BOE says they can't and don't close for religious holidays. Then Durso outright declared that they are closing for a religious holiday. And now the calendar is jacked to cater to a tiny segment of the population. [/quote]

The only thing anybody is asserting right here is that your numbers are out of date. Which they are.[/quote]

There are no reliable 2015 figures for # of Muslims in the county that I can find. If you can find, feel free to post. [/quote]

Could somebody please clarify this issue for me?  I assumed that there was some defined criteria with a threshold which would determine if a given population was large enough to justify closing schools.  It sounds as though not only are we lacking decision criteria, we are lacking the data on which to apply it.  Has MCPS cited their criteria for closing for this group?   Are they looking at attendance data?  Do we even know if this is the largest unrepresented group?  We are a very diverse system.  I know, for example, we have a large Asian population which may encompass multiple faiths.  I don't know what religious holidays they might observe or how their numbers compare to those of the Muslim (or Christian or Jewish) faith.

Please understand this is a sincere post as I feel woefully uninformed on this subject.  [/quote]

As far as we know there is no defined criteria. It looks to be a mostly political decision. It is actually unprecedented, as the Board and MCPS have always maintained  that schools will only close due to operational issues. For instance, there is a high percentage of Jewish staff who work for MCPS and they would all presumably request subs for the High Holidays that fall on weekdays. There's also a high student absence rate on those days. So schools are not closed in observance of the holidays, but because schools would not be able to operate typically if they were open.

At least that's been the explanation for as long as I've been in MoCo as a child and as an adult. [/quote]

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