Farmington BoE Under Fire By Multiple Groups Over School Holidays

FARMINGTON, CT — The local board of education's decision to propose eliminating some school holidays and not add another, while keeping some, has angered many in the community.

The bipartisan decision was made Nov. 14, with the Farmington Board of Education unanimously voting to make several tentative adjustments to the 2023-24 school calendar.

With the Nov. 14 vote, the school board authorized administrators to revise the calendar accordingly, with a second-reading and possible action based on that expected Monday night, Dec. 5, at a school board meeting slated for 7 p.m. at Irving A. Robbins Middle School, 20 Wolf Pit Road.

Those adjustments include:

• Deleting Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish faith's two most important holidays, as a day off the school calendar, something that had been the case for more than two decades.

• Not adding the Hindu holiday of Diwali to the school holiday list, despite the requests of several residents in attendance at the meeting last month.

• Keeping both Good Friday, a Christian-faith holiday prior to Easter Sunday, and Indigenous Peoples’ Day/ Italian American Heritage Day, the October holiday that formerly was "Columbus Day."

In deciding on those holidays, school board members utilized a special chart that takes into account several factors in determining whether a holiday should be recognized with school closure or not.

Those factors include if a holiday is a state or federal holiday; whether if not having a day off would impact attendance from staff and students; and whether a situation would be created where multiple groups in town would request holidays off, resulting in the school year being extended well into June.

Each board member filled out the five-page worksheet and came to its unanimous conclusion regarding the first reading of the new calendar.

That, however, did not sit well with many in town.

Local resident Eveline Shekhman started a petition to Farmington Board of Education Chairperson Liz Fitzsimmons, urging the board reconsider its Nov. 14 decision.

The petition, available on Change.org, is close to its 1,500-signature goal, tallying 1,272 signatures as of Monday, Dec. 5.

While the petition isn't binding, it is meant as a way to show the school board how much its vote a month ago is being opposed.

"The BOE used a 'decision-making chart' to guide their vote but provided no sources for the 'data' used within their 'decision-making chart,'" wrote Shekhman in the online petition.

The petition claims the school board didn't take into account the large Southwest Asian and Jewish populations in Farmington, with many speaking out for the holidays at the Nov. 14 meeting, which lasted about four-and-a-half hours.

"We need to show the BOE that Farmington residents are compelling the 9-member Board of education to vote 'no' and reject their November 14th decision and return to creating a 2023/2024 school calendar that reflects the composition of the town," reads Shekhman's petition.

Farmington's decision comes as Southington's school board heard last month an impassioned presentation to add the two Jewish holidays to the list of days off.

Whether that will happen in Southington is not known, but Farmington's history of having those days off was cited by proponents in Southington.

For the minutes of the Nov. 14 Farmington Board of Education meeting, including the decision criteria on the holidays, click on this link.

For the agenda of the Dec. 5 Farmington Board of Education meeting, click on this link.

For the Change.org petition protesting the Farmington Board of Education's school calendar decision, click on this link.