Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read this as they are asking that Diwali be marked on the calendar. Not that school be closed on the day.

Well they won't have any luck in MCPS since no religious holidays are actually recognized as such on the calendar. But MCPS opened the door to having many more holidays "recognized" by closing schools for students on Eid and changing a professional day from August (sorely needed) to September (unneeded). They should have known that they can't choose to recognize one holiday without giving the same acknowledgement to other holidays. Now it's a free for all since they went against their own policy of only closing schools due to operational issues.

MCPS only closed on Eid because it coincided with a Jewish holiday.

It's doesn't coincide with a Jewish holiday

Not always, but last fall it did.

The first day of Holy Week for Easter and the start of Passover don't always perfectly coincide either.

I do think if we start including all religious holidays kids will be in school less during the year.

I think the best thing to do is just give kids who are going to celebrate an excused absence and make sure to mark the holidays on the calendars but not as holidays just as reminders.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where I work this problem is solved by giving everyone two floating holidays a year in addition to normal vacation time.

The idea is that these can be used to take off on religious holidays so that people are free to take off for theirs without everyone having to take off. But their use is not limited to religious holidays; everyone gets them and can use them as they see fit.

If it was implemented in a way that teachers would have to give sufficient advance notice for using them, why couldn't this work?

This is a fine idea, but it only addresses the teacher side, not the student side. If too many kids are missing, it becomes something of a lost instructional day. Now, I don't think there are enough observant Hindu kids at any given school that more than 10% would be missing, but I might be wrong.

Even for those who aren't religiously observant, it's a big cultural holiday as Christmas is for many purely nominal Christians or the first two nights of Passover for many strictly cultural Jews. As a teacher, I've noticed this with the Eids as well. It's not MCPS's place to police the actual religious faith of students any more than a supervisor could in the world of work for people who use leave for religious holidays. I have Jewish students who take the minor holidays off as a day to decompress or catch up on school work not go to shul. These are still marked "excused for religious". That's between them and God. I bet most of my Christian students used Thursday to shop and go to the movies not attend church services. Why should I care? I don't want MCPS to require a note from the priest, rabbi, or imam that the child attended services.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read this as they are asking that Diwali be marked on the calendar. Not that school be closed on the day.

Well they won't have any luck in MCPS since no religious holidays are actually recognized as such on the calendar. But MCPS opened the door to having many more holidays "recognized" by closing schools for students on Eid and changing a professional day from August (sorely needed) to September (unneeded). They should have known that they can't choose to recognize one holiday without giving the same acknowledgement to other holidays. Now it's a free for all since they went against their own policy of only closing schools due to operational issues.

MCPS only closed on Eid because it coincided with a Jewish holiday.

It's doesn't coincide with a Jewish holiday

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we knew this was coming...

Yes! Only Christian holidays should be recognized!

That's what I think, too.

You mean Christian and Jewish holidays because Jews have gotten those holidays since the 70s.

Jews in the US

While I don't have the facts in front of me, I'm taking an educated guess in saying that school systems with few Jews close for their religious holidays.

Anonymous wrote:Where I work this problem is solved by giving everyone two floating holidays a year in addition to normal vacation time.

The idea is that these can be used to take off on religious holidays so that people are free to take off for theirs without everyone having to take off. But their use is not limited to religious holidays; everyone gets them and can use them as they see fit.

If it was implemented in a way that teachers would have to give sufficient advance notice for using them, why couldn't this work?

It's called personal leave. Yes, it's part of our leave, and we'd have to "pay for it." But even if they were "given" to us, it doesn't solve the problem.

Let's say a Jewish holiday rolls around and MANY teachers are off. There aren't enough subs to cover their classes. That's why the two holidays - Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were noted as official holidays.

There aren't enough teachers in the system who celebrate Hindu holidays to ask that it be a day off. same goes for Eid - even though that's been a recent debate

Christians and Jews (at least in this area) outnumber other religions. Therefore, their holidays put pressure on the school system. In other areas, where there are fewer Jews, systems don't close.

So it's not a "religious" reason; it's a number's game.

Anonymous wrote:Where I work this problem is solved by giving everyone two floating holidays a year in addition to normal vacation time.

The idea is that these can be used to take off on religious holidays so that people are free to take off for theirs without everyone having to take off. But their use is not limited to religious holidays; everyone gets them and can use them as they see fit.

If it was implemented in a way that teachers would have to give sufficient advance notice for using them, why couldn't this work?

This is a fine idea, but it only addresses the teacher side, not the student side. If too many kids are missing, it becomes something of a lost instructional day. Now, I don't think there are enough observant Hindu kids at any given school that more than 10% would be missing, but I might be wrong.

Where I work this problem is solved by giving everyone two floating holidays a year in addition to normal vacation time.

The idea is that these can be used to take off on religious holidays so that people are free to take off for theirs without everyone having to take off. But their use is not limited to religious holidays; everyone gets them and can use them as they see fit.

If it was implemented in a way that teachers would have to give sufficient advance notice for using them, why couldn't this work?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we knew this was coming...

Yes! Only Christian holidays should be recognized!

That's what I think, too.

You mean Christian and Jewish holidays because Jews have gotten those holidays since the 70s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we knew this was coming...

Yes! Only Christian holidays should be recognized!

That's what I think, too.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS should create a multicultural calendar that lists all the holidays from the various cultures. It costs nothing to add a label on a calendar day.

The big mistake in MCPS is turning the breaks and days off into an attempt to balance Christmas and Jewish holidays which makes both sets of days religious and open the door, rightly to everyone else.

MCPS should also stop giving Jewish holidays and non-essential professional days. A small number of professional days for grading makes sense. Professional days for training or attending a union conference should never be done during the instructional year as a random day off. These should be done during the winter, spring or summer breaks.

The extra days that MCPS gets back should be applied to a longer winter break so its actually a winter break rather than a short Christmas break. Any additional days can be a longer Thanksgiving break so families of any culture can travel.

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to attend training sessions on my vacation. If I choose to attend classes, it's toward my PhD. Don't expect me, however, to take PD during spring or winter break.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS should create a multicultural calendar that lists all the holidays from the various cultures. It costs nothing to add a label on a calendar day.

The big mistake in MCPS is turning the breaks and days off into an attempt to balance Christmas and Jewish holidays which makes both sets of days religious and open the door, rightly to everyone else.

MCPS should also stop giving Jewish holidays and non-essential professional days. A small number of professional days for grading makes sense. Professional days for training or attending a union conference should never be done during the instructional year as a random day off. These should be done during the winter, spring or summer breaks.

The extra days that MCPS gets back should be applied to a longer winter break so its actually a winter break rather than a short Christmas break. Any additional days can be a longer Thanksgiving break so families of any culture can travel.

MCPS has 5 (although now 4 to accommodate Eid) professional days in August to prepare for the students' arrival, and 4 professional days for grading & reporting throughout the year. They do not get professional days for training or attending union conferences. One of the August professional days has been switched to September to accommodate Eid and since it is not at the middle or end of the marking period it will presumably be used for training that won't be able to be completed in August due to the reduction of August professional days.


So what were you prattling on about? What are these non-essential professional days of which you speak?

MCPS should create a multicultural calendar that lists all the holidays from the various cultures. It costs nothing to add a label on a calendar day.

The big mistake in MCPS is turning the breaks and days off into an attempt to balance Christmas and Jewish holidays which makes both sets of days religious and open the door, rightly to everyone else.

MCPS should also stop giving Jewish holidays and non-essential professional days. A small number of professional days for grading makes sense. Professional days for training or attending a union conference should never be done during the instructional year as a random day off. These should be done during the winter, spring or summer breaks.

The extra days that MCPS gets back should be applied to a longer winter break so its actually a winter break rather than a short Christmas break. Any additional days can be a longer Thanksgiving break so families of any culture can travel.

You have to support this or take always days off from all religious holidays. No Hindu, btw.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, FFS! This is ridiculous.

My DH is Indian, and even he thinks it's gone way overboard. He joked that the people pushing for this petition must not even really be Indian. No 'true' Indian parent pushes for less time in school for their kid!

Is there a petition against this too? Someone needs to start one.

Really, what is the percentage of students/teachers that this affects? Maybe MCPS can set a policy that if it affects over 30% (or whatever percentage) of the school population, they'll acknowledge it on the calendar or give the day off or whatever.

In reality, I've always supported year-round school, so maybe this is a good way to get that to happen! We'll have to acknowledge all the various holidays for all the various religions/cultures, so there are only so many days left for the kids to be in school. They'll need to go year round!

It has occurred to me that the animating force behind this petition might not be a genuine desire to have Diwali off, but rather some sort of attempt to make sure Eid is never a day off by creating a "slippery slope" argument.

I'm the PP, and my DH really was just joking. I honestly do see it as a slippery slope though. It's all way over the op. People of any group can start requesting days off for any reason!

And why shouldn't they? There are 365 days in a year. Subtract weekends and there are plenty of days eligible to be part of the 180 that MCPS must be in session.