Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In places I have lived before, they have the opposite solution: only have winter break over Christmas and separate spring break from any holidays at all. Don't get off any other religious holidays. The end.

That is what all non-secular private schools do. End of 3rd quarter is Spring Break in late March, which makes sense. Most of the time it does not line up with Passover or Easter.

Not sure why MCPS can't do this. Oh wait, that is right. The stupid state rule of Good Friday and Easter Monday for public schools. I am a Catholic and find it ridiculous and I personally don't want my Spring Break around Easter nor do I want the kids out of school for 11 straight days. Take your kids out of school if Good Friday is that important for your family. Easter Monday? Completely made up.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS parent here. And we have "winter break" that happens to encompass Christmas and spring break, that "happens" to to end on Good Friday. (plus most federal holidays and an incredible number of il-timed TWDs that are always clustered during the time of the year when kids are out for snore every other week). All other religious holidays are ex

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of years ago, when the MCPS school board removed the names of religious holidays from the school calendar, they stated that it is their policy to only include religious holidays to the calendar if the student/teacher absentee rate exceeds 15%. This is why Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur were added many years ago. This is because public school systems cannot legally call a school holiday exclusively for religious purposes - it MUST be for operational reasons.

The school board made a terrible mistake last year when they reversed that policy and added Eid to the calendar as a professional day. They admitted when they did so that they wanted to honor the diversity of our county and that the absentee data did not support it. Notice that they are currently trying to get around that mistake by suggesting that the professional day on September 12 wasn't to honor a religious holiday and that it was simply a coincidence that it occurred on EID. I would imagine that the lawyers for MCPS went bananas when the school board made that decision and that they are becoming more frustrated now that the board is considering adding Diwali and Lunar New Year, because like EID, there is not an operational reason to do so.

I think it is vitally important that we honor the religious diversity of our students in MCPS, and we do so currently by allowing students and teachers to take excused absences when religious holidays occur. However, we simply cannot honor everyone of every religious faith by having a day off - there is not enough time in the school year to do so. By adding Eid to the calendar, the board has set a precedent that will most certainly result in inequity.

I believe we should collect new data on all of our religious holidays to ensure that they are meeting the 15% threshold. In addition, I think we should be lobbying the state to eliminate Good Friday and Easter Monday from the list of state holidays and only include them if they meet the 15% absentee benchmark. I am a religious person myself, but I understand that in a public school system, we simply cannot allow religion to dictate operations.

First, the area is not 15% Jewish. Second, there are many schools where the absentee rate for students is much more than 15% on Eid.

It's about 12% Jewish. High compared to other parts of the country. Some schools are much higher.

But to me that is not enough to have TWO days off for the rest of the 88%. And most of upcountry has 0% Jewish population. The county is too big.

And I personally like Hogan's new policy because it is making schools get rid of all the nonsense days off that parents have to take PPO for.

His policy is dumb though. Why should there be more weeks off in the summer when it's already too long for most kids? Seems better to have days off during the school year even if it inconveniences you (sorry you have to live in a diverse society).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of years ago, when the MCPS school board removed the names of religious holidays from the school calendar, they stated that it is their policy to only include religious holidays to the calendar if the student/teacher absentee rate exceeds 15%. This is why Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur were added many years ago. This is because public school systems cannot legally call a school holiday exclusively for religious purposes - it MUST be for operational reasons.

The school board made a terrible mistake last year when they reversed that policy and added Eid to the calendar as a professional day. They admitted when they did so that they wanted to honor the diversity of our county and that the absentee data did not support it. Notice that they are currently trying to get around that mistake by suggesting that the professional day on September 12 wasn't to honor a religious holiday and that it was simply a coincidence that it occurred on EID. I would imagine that the lawyers for MCPS went bananas when the school board made that decision and that they are becoming more frustrated now that the board is considering adding Diwali and Lunar New Year, because like EID, there is not an operational reason to do so.

I think it is vitally important that we honor the religious diversity of our students in MCPS, and we do so currently by allowing students and teachers to take excused absences when religious holidays occur. However, we simply cannot honor everyone of every religious faith by having a day off - there is not enough time in the school year to do so. By adding Eid to the calendar, the board has set a precedent that will most certainly result in inequity.

I believe we should collect new data on all of our religious holidays to ensure that they are meeting the 15% threshold. In addition, I think we should be lobbying the state to eliminate Good Friday and Easter Monday from the list of state holidays and only include them if they meet the 15% absentee benchmark. I am a religious person myself, but I understand that in a public school system, we simply cannot allow religion to dictate operations.

First, the area is not 15% Jewish. Second, there are many schools where the absentee rate for students is much more than 15% on Eid.

It's about 12% Jewish. High compared to other parts of the country. Some schools are much higher.

But to me that is not enough to have TWO days off for the rest of the 88%. And most of upcountry has 0% Jewish population. The county is too big.

And I personally like Hogan's new policy because it is making schools get rid of all the nonsense days off that parents have to take PPO for.

Anonymous wrote:Spring break is entirely too long. The students shut down and they don't ever seem to get the chance to ramp back up before the end of the school year. This year, Howard County designated "Easter Monday" to be a snow makeup day (as well as President's day) and I would love to see more spring break days used that way. That's what they did when I was a kid here in Maryland. The problem is that it seems like everyone wants to go on cruises during spring break and the kids get pulled from school regardless. I don't know when spring break turned into cruise week. It wasn't like that when I was a kid.