Addition of Eid to School Calendars - Is Bloomberg About to Budge?

By Sara Elghobashy
September 29, 2009

In January 2006, a statewide examination scheduled on Eid ul-Adha motivated more than eighty diverse community, faith, labor and civil rights groups to join forces to ensure that Muslim students in New York City no longer had to choose between attending school and celebrating Eid with their families. The groups, which together form the Coalition of Muslim School Holidays, are working tirelessly to convince a hesitant Mayor Bloomberg to adopt Resolution 1281, which would add Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha to New York City’s public school calendar. Although Mayor Bloomberg was adamantly opposed to the resolution at first, he has recently expressed that he is considering it.

Bloomberg’s main concern seems to be that adding the Eid holidays to the public school calendar will lead to a flood of similar requests from other religious groups and thus, too many school days off. However, as Aliya Latif, Civil Rights Director of CAIR-NY, points out, that is not necessarily true.

“There may be only a trickle given the rationale set forth by the coalition in our proposal to incorporate the two Eids as official holidays,” she says, adding, “The reasonableness of the request here is based on a culmination of factors, including the research done by NYU School of Law’s Immigration Rights Clinic regarding the minimal impact on the school calendar and that 1 out of 8 NYC public school students is Muslim.”

Indeed, the two holidays would have minimal impact on the public school calendar. Research shows that in the coming years, the Eids will fall on other holidays, weekends, and during summer recess. This year, Eid fell on Sunday and the next one during Thanksgiving break. The Department of Education (DOE) sets the calendar in advance, so those arguing that they would have to inconveniently switch around their lesson plans throughout the year don∙t really have much of an argument at all. In addition, the public school calendar is often flexible. For example, this year the DOE announced it would add a day to the school year so that schools could start after Labor Day. Districts in NJ and Michigan have already made similar accommodations to Muslim students and have yet to show any adverse effects.

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