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2021 Religious Holidays Service. I need help with homework that's due tomorrow, and I need to decide whether schools should promote religious holidays; why or why not? Angela Deanne Paloma, Co News Editor|November 19, 2019, Public schools should not close for any religious reasons.Â. Public schools should not close or reschedule activities solely because of conflicts between the school calendar and religious holidays. Add religion into the mix of considerations and rational planning becomes impossible. The above is the list of religions for which we provide religious holidays for the year 2020, 2021 and beyond. Government schools close for those days, but not for days of importance to Jews. Because the Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue, there are no final or definitive answers. Federal and state laws prohibit schools from penalizing students for missing school on religious holidays. When schools choose not to close on particular holidays, conflicts may arise. "If you close the schools for every single holiday," he argued, "there won't be any school." It also has six minimum days, excluding finals week. You may not vote on this poll     For example, AP classes typically only have until the end of April to teach a higher volume of content in order to prepare students for AP exams. However, schools may consider closing when large numbers of student and teacher absences are anticipated. Commentary on TheHumanist.com does not constitute an official position of the American Humanist Association unless specifically noted. What about other groups who claim their beliefs require this or that day off? If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a gravatar. By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent 20 April 2009 • 15:27 pm Do public schools violate the Establishment Clause when they recognize some religious holidays, but not others? With respect to personal religious holidays, employees and students at public schools, could have say 5-10 additional excused absences for religious holidays. There are not many opportunities to make up the time that schools would lose for valuable instruction, especially at the beginning of the school year.Â. We currently provide Christian, Muslim Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religious holidays. As … The starting point for deciding if and when public schools should close on a religious holiday is the First Amendment. Schools should still take great care in creating their schedules. After all, that’s the only practical way to treat various religions equitably and with the respect they deserve. Row over school closures for Muslim, Hindu and Sikh holidays . But they can close on a religious holiday if they expect a large percentage of students and staff to be absent, ... said the decision to close schools isn't a contest between religions. After a long summer break, teachers and students need time to get used to being in school again, and the early closing of schools would not help.Â, Excluding Thanksgiving and holiday breaks, Cal High already has four days of no school during the first semester. As an extension of our government, public schools should also be separated from religion and not close for religious holidays. Schools with larger Jewish populations may have a stronger case, but there are also various religions and cultures in America with their own holidays. You will offer the students to not write them 'absent' on their religion's biggest holidays but keep the schools open. Constant breaks from school would especially affect those taking more advanced classes. At the time, the school committee wanted the mural addressed to “Our Heavenly Father” to remain in place, according to the teachers’ union. Consider a few episodes that tip the scale of schedule-setting toward the nonsensical. “The Muslim faith is one of the fastest growing in this city and in this nation,” de Blasio explained. Should schools close for Eid holidays? Many parents and students nationwide have been asking districts to close public schools on major religious holidays to allow kids to celebrate without worrying about schoolwork. According to Haynes, many schools close on religious holidays because they may not function properly on those days if many students and teachers choose to take the day off. As religious minorities increase in the United States, some want public schools to close not only on Christmas, but also on their religious holidays. Addressing the dispute begins with understanding how religious holidays end up on public school calendars. Angela Deanne Paloma is excited to spend her senior year and her second year in the Californian as a News Editor. Schools will be allowed to close for Islamic holidays in order to improve attendance rates, under new plans. Teachers’ requests to observe the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah the previous fall were approved by the city’s school department, but teachers were not allowed to take off the Christian holiday of Good Friday, according to the Cranston Teachers’ Alliance. Muslims celebrate Eid al-Adha, which is like a Muslim Christmas celebrated between the end of summer  to the beginning of fall. However, schools may consider closing when large numbers of student and teacher absences are anticipated. Public schools with small Jewish populations cannot afford to halt everybody’s learning to accommodate a small demographic. In many school systems, these have long … If compelled to balance competing claims from all religious believers (and, for the sake of fairness, nonbelievers) with practical matters such as weather, national civic holidays, and children’s (and adults’) needs for days off, then the absurdity of interrupting education for religious holidays becomes immediately apparent. Equity for some more than others seems to be the policy. get days off to observe two Islamic holidays, prayer mural at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, Representative Sean Duffy of Wisconsin spied a secularist plot, A Meditation: We Must Grow Past our Inabilities to Learn from History or Accept the Value of Science, Reader Opinion: Let’s Study Science Before Theology, The AHA Adopts Four New Resolutions in 2020, Offering a Humanist Hand to Asylum Seekers, Trolling and Controlling: Harming Trans Athletes Is Not a Humanist Sport. “While the operational impact of some holidays may not rise to the level of requiring us to close school, we do respect the rights of students and staff to celebrate those holidays.” But Arriaga said school officials should be teaching students about the value of religious diversity, not shunning it like something that is harmful. Schools are not required to close on a particular religious holiday but may choose to do so as a matter of administrative convenience as, for example, when large numbers of students are likely to be absent. In April of 2018, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an international news and wire agency for Jewish media, reported that the New York Board of Education was considering closing New York City schools on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—primarily for teachers' sake. Is this activity designed in any way to either promote or inhibit religion? Students in such classes are expected to keep up regardless of other extracurriculars or absences.Â, Students who take time off school for the sake of religious holidays should not hope the system conforms to fit all of their needs.Â, Additionally, districts may not meet the government-mandated amount of school days if they have to close school for a few students to celebrate religious holidays.Â. Perhaps not irrelevantly, after a federal judge in 2012 ruled that a prayer mural at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, the student on behalf of whom the American Civil Liberties Union had sued became the target of derision from local lawmakers and received violent threats. A school has refused to let its Muslim pupils take today off to celebrate Eid al-Adha, saying they should mark the religious holiday tomorrow instead. Adding days off for religious holidays, many of which occur in the fall, would make the first semester even shorter and the second semester longer because these days would have to be added somewhere. Many parents and students nationwide have been asking districts to close public schools on major religious holidays to allow kids to celebrate without worrying about schoolwork. Where does it end? “It is unconstitutional for public schools and their employees to observe religious holidays,” the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) states on its website. The high court has ruled, however, that the government may not erect an explicitly Certainly, having schools involved in assessing which holidays require attending religious services and prohibit work (and thus can be taken off by the observant) and which others do not, as happened in Cranston, is not a viable way to run a public school system, and neither is closing on more and more days as certain religious groups increase their population shares in certain places, as happened in New York City. Two councils have instructed all schools under their control to shut for the annual … The school committee had agreed in June 2014 to hold classes on Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Good Friday, but after 2015’s bad Good Friday, the teachers’ union wanted the religious holidays reinstated. Should they go to school or stay at home and get the benefits of the holiday? It's students' responsibility to take notes of the lessons taught that day. Equity was “the big concern here,” insisted a union representative. (It might bear mentioning that Cranston’s population is predominantly Christian and only about 3 percent Jewish. Religious Holidays in 8 the Public Schools 108 Tips for Planning Religious Holidays in Public Schools Before planning a religious holiday activity in a public school, ask the following questions: 1. Because of the district’s mid-August start date, the first semester also has only 85 days, 10 fewer than the second semester. Â. “[There is] no reason non-Jews should interrupt their learning so a tiny minority of Jewish students can go to synagogue,” wrote Mark Oppenheimer, editor for the online Jewish magazine Tablet. Currently, the Ontario government states that each school board should “have religious accommodation guidelines in place and communicate these guidelines to the community.” This means that if a test or school assembly conflicts with a religious holiday, then the student is allowed to fulfill the requirements another time without penalization. As religious diversity expands, so will the school calendar dilemma. Should schools close for major religious holidays? Public schools should not close or reschedule activities solely because of conflicts between the school calendar and religious holidays. If you think I should choose, "No, Schools SHOULDN't promote religious holidays" you must give me *three reasons* why. This would be my choice. Part of this was simply because of the numbers, with nearly 1.1 million of their schoolchildren being Muslim and their and other numbers continuing to grow across the nation with not only Islam, but other religions too. 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