School Board Votes to Close Schools on Eid al-Adha

From Montgomery County Public Schools:

Montgomery County Public School students will not have classes next year on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is Sept. 12, 2016.

The Montgomery County Board of Education voted last week to make Sept. 12 a professional day for staff in the proposed 2016-2017 school year calendar.

According to About.com, on the first morning of Eid al-Adha, Muslims attend morning prayers at their mosques, then visit with family and friends, and exchange gifts.

The change in the proposed calendar was approved on a 6-2, vote with board members Michael Durso, Christopher Barclay, Jill Ortman-Fouse, Rebecca Smondrowski, Judy Docca and Eric Guerci voting in favor. Board members Phil Kauffman and President Patricia O’Neill voted against making Sept. 12, 2016, a professional day.

The Board has requested that MCPS staff explore the options for making this change by adjusting the proposed calendar of professional days, which includes five preservice professional days, as well as four professional days distributed throughout the year. The school calendar is based on 184 instructional days for students (four more than the minimum required by the state of Maryland) and 193 duty days for teachers.

“MCPS is an extremely diverse county and our students and staff celebrate a wide variety of religious and cultural holidays,” said O’Neill. “I hope (this) decision highlights the board’s ongoing commitment to respect this diversity and work with the community to ensure that there is a fair and equitable process for determining when it is appropriate for MCPS to close schools. ”

The board deferred passage of the 2016-2017 school year calendar until Dec. 8 to give staff time to explore the options to accommodate the change.

“Many members of our community have respectfully asked for this holiday for many years and I believe that today’s decision is just the right thing to do,” said Durso. “I am confident that our staff can make this professional day a very valuable one that serves our educational interests and enables us to continue to improve as a district, while allowing our students this day to spend with their families.”

The district created two new tools to demonstrate its commitment to respecting the cultural and religious diversity in our community. A new calendar tool provides an easy to way to see all of the Montgomery County “Days of Commemoration” on the calendar. The “Days of Commemoration” webpage was created by Montgomery County to include the major religious and cultural celebrations of the county’s faith traditions. MCPS released a new publication in August, Guidelines for Respecting Religious Diversity, that answers many common questions about accommodations that allow students to observe and participate in religious holidays and traditions in school and during school-sponsored events.

Students who miss school to celebrate a holiday on a day that MCPS is not closed are granted an excused absence and are given an opportunity to make up any work. Major religious holidays on which MCPS schools are open are designated “no testing days” districtwide. Teachers are encouraged not have major tests or major project deadlines on such days.