School calendar should recognize religious holidays

Superintendent Joshua Starr recommended that the MCPS Board of Education remove the names of all religious holidays from the calendar.

On Starr’s proposed 2015-2016 school calendar, all religious holiday names would be removed and replaced with the label “No school for students and teachers.”

It is wrong to select which holiday names to include and Starr should instead include all religious holiday names in the school calendar.

In a liberal county where we preach inclusion and denounce discrimination, Starr is setting a poor example for students by not recognizing different religions.

According to a November 2014 article from Bethesda Magazine, in September, the Council on American-Islamic Relations lobbied the MCPS Board of Education to recognize Eid al-Adha as a holiday, especially since it falls on the same day as Yom Kippur for the 2015-2016 school calendar.

Yet, instead of including Eid al-Adha along with Yom Kippur, Starr removed the names of all religious holidays from the school calendar.

CHS students are often reminded, through posters and pledges, to be inclusive and accepting of all people, religions and cultures. However by removing the names of religious holidays from the calendar, MCPS is taking a step backward and teaching its students to ignore our differences instead of embrace them.

Starr did decree that the two religious holidays of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fatr are “no testing” days. Despite this recognition, Starr’s decree still pales in comparison to the closing of schools on other holidays such as Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Good Friday and Easter Monday, along with other non-religious holidays.

According to the Bethesda Magazine article, the closing of schools on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is based on the substantial amount of teacher and student absences on those days, and it is not based on “favoring a particular, religious, cultural, or ethnic group.”

However, by removing the names of all religious holidays from the calendar, Starr is inadvertently showing favoritism for Christianity and Judaism, shown by his notion that he would rather not recognize any religious holiday than recognize Muslim holidays.

While MCPS decided not to include all religious holidays on the school calendar, other districts across the country have begun to recognize Muslim holidays in addition to Christian and Jewish holidays.

According to a June 2012 Huffington Post article, school districts in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Burlington, Vermont, Dearborn, Michigan and Trenton, New Jersey now close for Muslim holidays.

As one of the most respected counties in the entire country, MCPS should be at the forefront of religious tolerance, but Starr’s insensitive decision to remove the names of all religious holidays from the calendar is a major step backward and sets a poor example for other counties to follow.

Instead of removing the names of all religious holidays, Starr needs to recognize all religions on the school calendar. He needs to reconsider his decision and help MCPS regain its status as a community that embraces all religions and cultures.