Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should not get sidelined discussing religious holidays during the academic year. Our attention should be on the shrinking of the academic year and available instructional days.
It should not be viewed from the point of just reducing the achievement gap, since all students are shortchanged when the instructional days are reduced.

As a working parent, I dread the half days, professional days, holidays that seems to keep popping up all the time. There is a whole lot of no-school days throughout the year and then an enormously long summer break. We should also have extra days built in for extreme weather that will now become a more frequent occurrence. This means being prepared for snow days, summer storms, tornadoes, derechos, cloudbursts etc. I really do not care if Hindu festivals do not get a holiday. I would like an acknowledgement of these holidays, religions, beliefs built into a World Studies curriculum but I don't think that celebrating all festivals of all religions in the US with school holidays is useful.

- Indian-American Hindu.

Not to muddy the waters, but as a factual matter, the district is composed
Of pluralities these days, not majority vs. minority.
Is composed of pluralities now, not majority vs minority. And for those saying achievement gap issues affect only a minority of the district - I don't

Thank you!

I would like to point out one thing in your statement. You can not disregard the achievement gas as an argument. Montgomery County BOE has announced this as their highest priority from the hiring of the superintendent to how they rate their schools. I agree it is best for ALL students, but BOE only really focusses on the minorities, not on the majority.

Anonymous wrote:I would be greatly surprised if Hogan loses his bid for re-election. I'm already getting emails from friends for Maladeno fundraisers, *yawn*. I don't care about his agenda points, his message is weak. He is following the path blazed by Hillary Clinton of having a message that misses the mark for the majority of voters.

I certainly don't agree with everything that Hogan has done, but the actions of the MoCo BOE affect my children's education directly. For years we've been sitting by helplessly wondering who could step in to corral this out of control BOE.

It's not a difficult decision. Keep spring break, and take out the extra minority religious holidays. Solid weeks are much better for a child's education, which is actually the purpose of school. I think it is financially difficult for poor central American immigrants to plan and pay for three additional days of whole day childcare for holidays they don't celebrate anyway.

Montgomery County BOE will more than likely cut the spring break that the majority of parents would like to keep and try to blame Hogan. It's the BOE's choice in how to implement the governor's reasonable order so the backlash will fall on them.

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you!

I would like to point out one thing in your statement. You can not disregard the achievement gas as an argument. Montgomery County BOE has announced this as their highest priority from the hiring of the superintendent to how they rate their schools. I agree it is best for ALL students, but BOE only really focusses on the minorities, not on the majority.

Anonymous wrote:I would be greatly surprised if Hogan loses his bid for re-election. I'm already getting emails from friends for Maladeno fundraisers, *yawn*. I don't care about his agenda points, his message is weak. He is following the path blazed by Hillary Clinton of having a message that misses the mark for the majority of voters.

I certainly don't agree with everything that Hogan has done, but the actions of the MoCo BOE affect my children's education directly. For years we've been sitting by helplessly wondering who could step in to corral this out of control BOE.

It's not a difficult decision. Keep spring break, and take out the extra minority religious holidays. Solid weeks are much better for a child's education, which is actually the purpose of school. I think it is financially difficult for poor central American immigrants to plan and pay for three additional days of whole day childcare for holidays they don't celebrate anyway.

Montgomery County BOE will more than likely cut the spring break that the majority of parents would like to keep and try to blame Hogan. It's the BOE's choice in how to implement the governor's reasonable order so the backlash will fall on them.

Anonymous wrote:We should not get sidelined discussing religious holidays during the academic year. Our attention should be on the shrinking of the academic year and available instructional days.
It should not be viewed from the point of just reducing the achievement gap, since all students are shortchanged when the instructional days are reduced.

As a working parent, I dread the half days, professional days, holidays that seems to keep popping up all the time. There is a whole lot of no-school days throughout the year and then an enormously long summer break. We should also have extra days built in for extreme weather that will now become a more frequent occurrence. This means being prepared for snow days, summer storms, tornadoes, derechos, cloudbursts etc. I really do not care if Hindu festivals do not get a holiday. I would like an acknowledgement of these holidays, religions, beliefs built into a World Studies curriculum but I don't think that celebrating all festivals of all religions in the US with school holidays is useful.

- Indian-American Hindu.

Anonymous wrote:On an average, an Indian student in India gets an average of two whole years of extra schooling compared to American students by the time they graduate from high school. Imagine what an advantage it is for students to get an additional 700 days of instruction from K-12. No wonder US is falling behind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

Those holidays meld into Spring Break, why would we not look at the minority religious holidays that sporadically interrupt the school week?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

"The Indian population" and "the Muslim population" are intersecting circles on a Venn diagram. I.e., there are Indians who are Muslim, and there are Muslims who are Indian.

If you're worried about closing for religious holidays, consider focusing on the Friday before Western Easter and the Monday after Western Easter. Those closings are mandated by state law.

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The issue of Jewish religious holidays off is not so much about childcare but rather the abrupt interruption of the school week. The MoCo BOE has placed the highest priority on closing the achievement gap. Whole weeks of school would help, and I doubt there is a huge Jewish immigrant population in -

I recently heard one of my daughter's friends say her parents and their friends were upset about Eid. Their feel like the Indian population is larger than Muslim in their MoCo area and are upset Dawali is not a school holiday.

We can give every minority religion a holiday and get rid of winter break too.

Next up is Chinese New Year