When I was a kid, no. Now? Yes, some of the holidays. The public schools in my town are closed for Yom Kippur and the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Not for any part of Sukkot or Hannukah, though.
The last university I worked at also had Yom Kippur and the first day of Rosh Hashanah as paid holidays, but not any part of Sukkot or Hannukah.
To be blunt, who cares? Kids have limited rights in these situations. As long the student’s parent/guardians say they’re a Jew, then the school system should be satisfied. The parents’ religions are not particularly relevant although some school systems may have other policies.
When I was a kid, the school was open on the Jewish holidays. It was never a problem for students, it’s not like it’s a huge deal to make up a day.
They are now closed for Yom Kippur and the first day of Rosh Hashanah. That wasn’t because it was a problem for the Jewish students, it was because the school was having trouble hiring enough substitute teachers those days. In the spirit of fairness, they started to close on Good Friday the same year they closed for the Jewish holidays. There were a lot of Catholic kids, and that made sense for the kids.
(It was a Catholic school committee member who held out for “separation of church and state”, though, which is why the school was open on the holidays.)
That’s what “personal holidays” are for. Every employer I’ve ever had gave me a handful of “personal holidays” and it was understood that I could use them to take off on Jewish holidays even if work was busy then or something.
In my case, when I was little, I suppose my parents must have told the teacher I’d be out. By the time I was in junior high, the teachers would ask who would be out for the Jewish holidays, and I raised my hand. I don’t believe anyone checked up with my parents. I don’t believe anyone ever lied about it, either.
Maybe because some kids would change their religion to coincide with any given holiday?
I have no recollection of Jewish Holidays in the school district where I grew up. My current school district does not close for them. This year they had a “staff development day” on Rosh Hashanah - the teachers worked but the kids stayed home. I’m calling that a fluke because last year those two days were a week apart.
The map provided by DCnDC shows that my County does, but that’s not a county government kind of decision. There are 20-or-so school districts in my county(plus mine and a few others overlap county lines). I guess that means at least one of them takes off for Jewish holidays.
That and some times the schools didn’t exactly follow the letter of the law in my youth. One teacher still displayed the Ten Commandments in his classroom as late as 1976. Possibly even later.
Mine “sort of” did for Passover - what other reason would there be to give a full week off at Easter? - but nothing for any of the others.
Okay, there is one reason to give a week off around Easter - it gives high school baseball and softball teams the opportunity to play in week-long tournaments…
Maybe just to have a week off in the spring- my kids had over a week for Easter vacation in Catholic schools. Even the pre-K to 8 school that didn’t have teams.
Jewish kids (and Muslim kids and Hindu kids and so on) could take off holidays specific to their culture/religion without dings to their attendance. But otherwise the doors were open.
I don’t think I even knew what Jewish was until I was at least middle school. Our rural area was about 40% black, 50% white, and the rest Italian, Russian, Indian, and later some Latinos.
I guess I answered wrong since they didn’t when I was in school 60-70 years ago, but I see from the map someone linked to that they do now (in Philly). We would get a card listing the holidays (the fall holidays plus the first two and last two days of Passover) and a parent would sign for which ones we could take off and they became excused absences. My parents approved everything although we made no religious observance (although we sort of fasted on Yom Kippur and went to a seder at an aunt’s every year).
The school my kids went to had more Muslim students than Jewish ones. And probably more Buddhist and Hindu students So no. (Minnesota, Land of Lakes, Lutherans and Lutefisk)
The daughterish is now at school on the East Coast - where the kosher kitchen closes for Shabbat and any Jewish holidays that necessitate the closing of the kitchen…“Mom, I didn’t know there were so many Jewish holidays!”
They didn’t when I was in school, but according to the map, they do now. Then again, I graduated in 1972, and I know the demographics of my old neighborhood have changed a lot since then.
The county where I live now doesn’t and I honestly couldn’t tell you where the nearest synagogue is. Closer to DC, for certain.