Closing Schools For Lunar New Year Gets Support Of Bernards Board Of Education

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Adding Lunar New Year to the Bernards Township School District calendar as a recognized holiday to close schools is getting the full support of the Board of Education(BOE).

The BOE discussed the holiday at its Feb. 9 meeting following requests from the Asian community for it to be added to the school calendar.

Michael Talbot, who sits on the Policy Committee, said all five members had discussed adding the holiday and "the majority were in favor of making it a day off to celebrate the day."

Talbot asked to hear the Board's opinion on adding Lunar New Year to the school calendar before the Policy Committee met again.

"As a parent of two daughters from China, I am very much in favor of it. I know how important it is to the Chinese community," said Janice Corrado.

Boardmember Smrithi Mohan also shared that she thinks "as a community we have grown, and we've become more diverse, and I think it makes sense to support a good chunk of our student body."

Boardmember Robin McKeon noted that the BOE has been discussing this addition for the last decade or two.

"There actually was a mixture of feelings. Some people didn't want to have off in the past, because they couldn't get off work to celebrate with their families, and they were celebrating on the weekend," said McKeon. "I think more people are celebrating on the day now, and I've always been in support of that."

Boardmember Keith Molinari said he was also in favor of the holiday addition but noted some concerns with constantly adding more days off and pushing the school year further out to June 30.

He also noted that the Lunar New Year, like some Jewish holidays, does fluctuate in which days they fall on. Lunar New Year in 2027 falls on Saturday, Feb. 6, which would not impact the school calendar.

"We will have some years where the majority [of holidays] are on a weekend, and it's not really going to affect the school at all. On those more than likely rare years when they're all on a weekday, we may have to talk about whether we're going to shorten a February break," said Molinari. "I think for the majority of years, it's not going to have a substantial impact on the school calendar, but it'll have a substantial impact on a good portion of our student population. So, I'm going to be in support of it."

Boardmember Brett Omelianuk also shared Molinari's concerns for pushing the school year out too far with the addition of too many days off.

"I do worry, we just keep adding more and more days, and the next thing you know, we're going to the very end of June. And that's my concern, but I could go for this," said Omelianuk.

Board President Jennifer White shared that the district does look three years out when creating their school calendars, which would help them plan for any extra days off.

"We will have the ability and flexibility to take that into account and to try as much as possible to keep our end date where we'd like it to be," said White.

White took an informal poll from the Board, and all members voted in favor of adding Lunar New Year to the school calendar.

The next Board of Education meeting is set for Monday, Feb. 23, at 7 p.m. in the Ridge High School Cafeteria.

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