New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina approved adding two Muslim holidays to the official public schools calendar. That means, starting during the next school year, there will be no classes on Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr.
The move makes NYC Public Schools the largest school district in the country to recognize the holidays. Eid al-Adha is a fall holiday, so school will be closed on Sept. 24, allowing Muslim families to celebrate the holiday together. Eid al-Fitr is during the summer, so summer school will not be held on that day.
“We made a pledge to families that we would change our school calendar to reflect the strength and diversity of our city,” de Blasio said on Wednesday. “Hundreds of thousands of Muslim families will no longer have to choose between honoring the most sacred days on their calendar or attending school. This is a common sense change, and one that recognizes our growing Muslim community and honors its contributions to our City.”
The mayor made the announcement at Brooklyn’s PS/IS 30. Thirty-six percent of students missed school there when Eid al-Adha was last on a regular school day.
This move has been a long time coming. According to Gothamist, the city Council already approved the holidays in 2009, but then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not approve of cancelling school on those days.
Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, celebrated the move in a Facebook post.
“This is monumental as New York City has the largest public school system in the country with well over 1 million students,” Sarsour wrote. “Muslim children will never again have to choose between their faith and their education.”
image courtesy of Alice Erardy/INFphoto.com