Anonymous wrote:Now that lively Hispanic heritage month wrapped up, what do they have planned next? Fall and Halloween celebrations? What's in November?

Yes exactly. November is Native American Heritage month. Also Dia de Las Muertos and Thanksgiving. And there is also regular school things like Parent Teacher Conferences and start of 2nd semester.

There is not something sinister going on. Anyone can easily lookup holiday, heritage months, and other days to recognize.

Now that lively Hispanic heritage month wrapped up, what do they have planned next? Fall and Halloween celebrations? What's in November?

Anonymous wrote:Why don't students have Nowruz, Ethiopian New Year's, or other new year's days off? If they try to give Ethiopian one off, people would complain it is 9/11. But MCPS does give j new year's off. Let's celebrate ALL new year's then. And on most years when YomK is not on a weekend, schools are also closed for it. So let's pick ALL the major holiest holidays for ALL heritages and give those days off. Schools could be year round because there would be so many days off.

Take a breath. Periodically, MCPS does a staff and student/family survey where they ask about all of these holidays, and whether families would take off to celebrate. Consistently, the number of folks who say they would be out on the High Holidays is high enough that it is not worth having school because too many kids and teachers would be out, and it would not be possible to cover new material or to get sufficient sub coverage.

If you feel strongly about Nowruz being off, please coordinate with other Persian Americans and advocate for it to be included on the survey, and then make sure everyone in your community marks it off.

Apparently Oct is also Italian heritage month. Haven't heard anything about celebrating Italians, and there are kids at the school who have Italian heritage or recently moved from Italy.

Anonymous wrote:Why don't students have Nowruz, Ethiopian New Year's, or other new year's days off? If they try to give Ethiopian one off, people would complain it is 9/11. But MCPS does give j new year's off. Let's celebrate ALL new year's then. And on most years when YomK is not on a weekend, schools are also closed for it. So let's pick ALL the major holiest holidays for ALL heritages and give those days off. Schools could be year round because there would be so many days off.

Because the population celebrating Ethiopian new year is not as large as the population celebrating Jewish New Year, particularly in relation to staff and students that would be missing.

Why don't students have Nowruz, Ethiopian New Year's, or other new year's days off? If they try to give Ethiopian one off, people would complain it is 9/11. But MCPS does give j new year's off. Let's celebrate ALL new year's then. And on most years when YomK is not on a weekend, schools are also closed for it. So let's pick ALL the major holiest holidays for ALL heritages and give those days off. Schools could be year round because there would be so many days off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid loves diversity but doesn't like heritage celebrations. DC feels they celebrate big groups at the expense of smaller ethnicities.

it seems like only some groups are chosen while others are ignored. maybe they should put less emphasis on our differences and focus more on what we have in common

Exactly. Yes we all have unique heritages let's cheer for that and move on. If a kid wants to invite classmates over to their place or another venue to showcase their heritage, great. Or the heritage night featuvities, fine. Leave celebrations out of school day.

Sharing of cultures is not a bad thing. In fact, it's how you build community. I'm not Irish, but I didn't mind learning about St. Patrick's Day and its connections to Ireland, which is the source of the holiday which is still celebrated in America to this day.

No one had a problem with celebrating St. Patrick's Day or Valentine's Day or Halloween in schools and classrooms, which all stem from European cultures and traditions, but the minute we prioritize spotlighting other cultural holidays and traditions in schools, now it's a problem?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid loves diversity but doesn't like heritage celebrations. DC feels they celebrate big groups at the expense of smaller ethnicities.

it seems like only some groups are chosen while others are ignored. maybe they should put less emphasis on our differences and focus more on what we have in common

Exactly. Yes we all have unique heritages let's cheer for that and move on. If a kid wants to invite classmates over to their place or another venue to showcase their heritage, great. Or the heritage night featuvities, fine. Leave celebrations out of school day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools acknowledge J new Year? Or a Muslim holiday, or a deep Catholic holiday? Any? Is that ok in a public school? Just curious not hating!

What is a "deep" Catholic holiday?

Nov 1, Dec 9th

Anonymous wrote:"White" is not a culture. Dominant "white" culture is, if it exists, a WASP culture. it's certainly not Italian, Greek or Eastern European.

Both black and white are cultures within the United States. American is a culture. Go live in your country of origin if you can’t tell what the differences are

Anonymous wrote:My kid loves diversity but doesn't like heritage celebrations. DC feels they celebrate big groups at the expense of smaller ethnicities.

it seems like only some groups are chosen while others are ignored. maybe they should put less emphasis on our differences and focus more on what we have in common

Anonymous wrote:What schools acknowledge J new Year? Or a Muslim holiday, or a deep Catholic holiday? Any? Is that ok in a public school? Just curious not hating!

Prince George’s county public schools are closed on most Jewish holidays. If that is what your “J” was for

Anonymous wrote:Funny how there is never a French heritage celebration or anything european.

At the schools? Maybe maybe not. But I literally just saw an October fest celebration of some type of Scandinavian or Germanic heritage festival thing last weekend. They were giving out free chocolates. Had outfits on, music and everything. A bakery was hosting it. Really nice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools acknowledge J new Year? Or a Muslim holiday, or a deep Catholic holiday? Any? Is that ok in a public school? Just curious not hating!

The kids are off for "J new Year" but it is certainly acknowledged even outside it being a holiday every year.

Yeah, it's really weird the way that they don't actually say that it's for Rosh Hashanah. It's in part because they don't want to pay the SEIU staff so they just claim. It's a non-instructional day so they can not pay them.

Anonymous wrote:What schools acknowledge J new Year? Or a Muslim holiday, or a deep Catholic holiday? Any? Is that ok in a public school? Just curious not hating!

The kids are off for "J new Year" but it is certainly acknowledged even outside it being a holiday every year.