Farmington BoE Votes To Allow Jewish Holidays As Days Off

FARMINGTON, CT — With many still enraged about a Nov. 14 vote not to grant days off for Jewish and Hindu holidays, the school board Monday night reversed their prior decision.

In a unanimous vote, the Farmington Board of Education revised the 2023-24 school calendar to the status quo prior to Nov. 14, essentially undoing what previously angered many.

As a result, the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur are now back to being school holidays in which there will be no classes on the two most important days of the Jewish faith.

School board members, along bipartisan lines, had unanimously approved the holiday eliminations, citing concerns about the length of the school year and worries other groups would demand holidays off.

The board utilized a multi-page worksheet through attorneys to determine if a holiday should be deemed a school holiday, something that rubbed many the wrong way.

Ultimately, the board backed off after nearly a month of angry feedback from the Jewish and Hindu communities.

"That is what this process is about and we have listened," Farmington Board of Education Chairman Elizabeth Fitzsimmons said Monday night.

The vote, however, still doesn't allow for the Hindu holiday of Diwali to be added to the school holiday calendar because that wasn't the case prior.

In recent weeks, Farmington residents of southwest Asian descent had been urging the school board to recognize this holiday.

Since Diwali doesn't fall on a school day next year, school officials said they have time to revisit the issue for future years.

The "status quo" vote also keeps Good Friday, a Christian holiday, and Indigenous Peoples Day/Italian American Heritage Day (formerly Columbus Day) as school holidays and days off.

Those two holidays were never on the chopping block.

The school board also voted to revisit board policies regarding how community holidays are recognized.

Farmington Board of Education Policy Committee Chairman Bill Beckert said his group will get to work quickly on that and get back to the full board with a recommendation by February.

He also acknowledged the difficult times the board is operating in, saying he understood why many were outraged.

"We live in a very divided country at a time where anti-Semitism and racism is rampant and its in that environment where we made this decision," Beckert said prior to the voice vote. "I understand why people have reacted the way they reacted."

Some Double Down

The schools board's reversal of the controversial Nov. 14 decision came amid a lengthy, tense regularly scheduled meeting at Irving A. Robbins Middle School.

Lasting more than four and a half hours, much of the meeting was dedicated to this issue, with nearly two hours of public testimony read into the record on the matter.

Right away, school board members opted to move the issue up in the agenda and approved their reversal prior to public testimony.

In doing so, members unanimously agreed to negate the Nov. 14 vote, though many doubled down, saying they still backed what was approved a month ago.

Those who spoke about this said the role of the board is education first and all decisions made prior were done with that in mind.

"I think its important to recognize that the role of the board of education is, first and foremost, to educate Farmington students," said school board member Patricia Boye-Williams.

"As a board of education, it is important and appropriate that our decision be religious neutral and we consider all educational and operational factors in order to do what is best for all of our students."

Among those factors, school officials said, were a school year extending well into June if the holidays piled up, something more difficult given the facilities' lack of air conditioning.

Still, members said they supported the decision to rescind Nov. 14 because it gives school officials more time to look into the situation.

Anger Over Outrage

Many school officials speaking Monday also expressed anger at the intense level of community outrage directed at board members, who they said are just volunteers serving their schools.

Some even said they felt their safety was in jeopardy given what they were hearing over cyberspace and community forums.

Board members, for example, were called "racist" and "anti-Semites," something school officials angrily denied.

"The board has been subject to horrible, personal attacks and attempts to disparage our reputation," school board member Christine Arnold said. "While I have always understood this would be a complex issue, I have never believed that our community would behave this way. And I was so wrong."

School board member Sarah Healey echoed those sentiments, saying "these are not simple, or easy, decisions."

"Yet we as a board have been subject to a great deal of unfounded accusations about our decision-making process and, more recently, the actions of some have gone so far as to raise concerns for our personal safety," Healey said.

After the vote to rescind was made, many in the public still attacked the Nov. 14 decision, though some did express gratitude for the reversal.

"I would like for you to put yourself in my shoes as a Jewish mother," resident Katharine Kluger said, speaking directly to the board members who, though voting for the reversal, said they still supported the Nov. 14 vote.

Kluger also criticized board members for expressing anger at the public's outrage.

"Instead of feeling sorry for yourselves because you have received negative feedback from the community, take those same hurt feelings and turn them back to the children that you are hurting by this decision," Kluger said.

Resident Lisa Fishman said the Nov. 14 decision infuriated her.

"I said to my husband, 'They are setting us back," Fishman said. "As the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, I will not be silent."

She said the prior methodology of determining school holidays was, merely, "using a chart and hiding behind a lawyer."

After Monday's school board vote, the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford issued a statement supporting the reversal.

"The Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford applauds today’s announcement that the Farmington School District will add back Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to its school calendar and will reconsider the request from the South Asian community to add its holy day of Diwali," the organization said.

"As our communities become increasingly diverse, it’s more important than ever to embrace that growing diversity by enshrining values of respect and inclusion in our schools’ policies and practices."

From Dec. 5: 'Controversial School Calendar Changes Panned In Farmington'