NYC schools may close for muslim holidays.

[mojaveman]

New York City public schools may now close on Muslim holidays.

Democratic mayoral candidiate Bill De Blasio said the holidays should be recognized out of respect for Islam.

http://news.yahoo.com/new-york-schoo...185517679.html

[rubberneck]

I suppose if NYC schools close for Christmas and the various Jewish holidays they should close for the Muslim ones as well. I will say this, watching De Blasio running NYC will be like watching a four year long slow motion train wreck. By the time he's done NYC residents won't like what he's done. He's a loon and a communist.

[The Reaper]

Why not just give muslim students every day off as a holiday?

TR

[Richard]

Meh. School districts in Dallas with large Jewish populations take a "Fall Break" during the Jewish high holiday period because the Jewish students will be absent for religious activities and, if they didn't take the break, the absences would be counted against their rating IAW the Texas Ed Agency's reporting guidelines of which attendance is an important component.

And of course there is the "Winter Break" over the Christmas holiday period and the "Spring Break" over the Easter holiday period.

Richard

[T-Rock]

Great....., now, as a sanctioned holiday, the schoolchildren will be able to celebrate raising food for poor hungry Jihadists (zakat-Eid al-Fitr), and celebrate the slicing of throats to further the children's education on what to do with disobedient infidels (Eid al-Adha)..

[BrokenSwitch]

Baltimore County, MD has such a large Jewish population that the public schools close for the reasons and duration that Richard described.

If there's enough Muslim students to justify adopting this policy for them, then I don't see the problem (although Ramadan's non-summer occurrence would be extremely disruptive). On the other hand, if it's just about "equality" then to hell with it.

Originally Posted by T-Rock

Great....., now, as a sanctioned holiday, the schoolchildren will be able to celebrate raising food for poor hungry Jihadists (zakat-Eid al-Fitr), and celebrate the slicing of throats to further the children's education on what to do with disobedient infidels (Eid al-Adha)..

As for learning what, exactly, the holidays represent... as a Jew growing up in a mixed neighborhood, I learned about Christmas and Easter informally, but I learned about the Jewish holidays in day school. I don't think it is important to be formally educated about anyone's religious customs in a public school setting, but T-Rock brings up reasons why it is worth being aware of the new holidays (at least for the administrators).

Lots of food for thought here...