Should Millburn Schools Close For Diwali?

MILLBURN, NJ — Should the Millburn Public School District add holidays for Diwali and the Lunar New Year to the 2018-19 school calendar? That’s what some local activists are asking administrators to do.

If Millburn administrators add the two holidays, the school year would start before Labor Day and still end in late June, CBS New York reported.

The Millburn Board of Education will meet Monday to talk more about the school calendars and to hear from the public, the report stated. More than 20 percent of students at Millburn’s middle school and high school and 30 percent of students in the elementary schools are classified as Asian, according to New Jersey Department of Education statistics.

According to the BBC:

“Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, is the most popular of all the festivals from South Asia. It is also an occasion for celebration by Jains and Sikhs… The festival celebrates the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance, although the actual legends that go with the festival are different in different parts of India.”

The five-day festival is celebrated by millions of people across the world every autumn, according to the Independent.

Self-identified “religious statesman” Rajan Zed advocated for the new holidays in Millburn, stating that the board should respect the feelings of Hindus, who had been pushing for the Diwali holiday in Millburn’s schools for many years.

It’s not fair for Hindu pupils who have to attend school during the popular festival while many other schools in the state are closed on holy days of some other communities, Zed said.

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