Brick School Calendar Omission In 2015-16 Upsets Jewish Community

Brick Township Schools Superintendent Walter Uszenski said the district will work more closely with the Jewish community in the future, after a misunderstanding led to an omission of Yom Kippur from the list of school holidays in 2015-16.

Rabbi Robert Benjamin Rubin from Temple Beth Or, on Van Zile Road, asked the Brick Township Board of Education why the holiday was omitted in the calendar for the next school year at the board’s meeting on Thursday.

“My congregation is telling me this has been included in the school holidays for years,” Rubin said. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, two of the holiest days in the Jewish faith, have been included as days off from school going back to at least the early 1980s. The only years that either holiday was not included as a day off from school have been when one of them fell on a weekend.

That is what happened this year, when Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, began at sundown on Friday, Oct. 3, and ended at sundown on Saturday, Oct. 4.

Rosh Hashanah, the Day of Remembrance, is a two-day celebration of the Jewish New Year that is a time of introspection and reflection on the past year, according to the website Judaism 101. In school districts where the holiday is included in the school calendar, typically only the first day of Rosh Hashanah is given as a day off. This year Rosh Hashanah began at sundown on Sept. 24 and ended at sundown on Sept. 26.

In 2015, Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Sunday, Sept. 13 and ends at sundown on Tuesday, Sept. 15. Brick’s schools will be closed on Monday, Sept. 14. Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Tuesday, Sept. 22 and ends Wednesday, Sept. 23.

Contractual agreements with the teachers and other school staff limit the number of school holidays, board member Frank Pannucci Jr. said. Uszenski said it was simply an error because the number of scheduled days of in the 2015-16 calendar was based on the number of scheduled days off in this year’s school calendar.

Uszenski said he thought the district had only allotted one day for the Jewish holidays, and that he reached out to family members who are Jewish for guidance on which was the most important, and was told Rosh Hashanah, he said.

Rubin asked the board to amend the calendar before voting on it, but Pannucci said the contractual agreements prevented them from doing that.

”We did not mean it as any slight,” Uszenski said, and promised to consult with Rubin and the Jewish community going forward.

Under state law, students and staff who wish to take a religious holiday that is not included as a day off from school are permitted to do so without any penalties, and the absence is considered an excused absence, according to the state Department of Education website.