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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.