That depends on how you read “reflect diversity”. If you read it to mean that “if you recognize one religion , you must recognize all”, then you might end up with an idiotic calendar. (or it might simply be different from the current one). Not true if you read it to mean “NYC no longer consists of one majority religion and a single significant minority religion. As minority religion(s) become more numerically significant the school calendar should reflect that change.”
I’m confused. Why would you call a it a “Day of Low Attendance” if it’s a day off? Or do you mean that the opening of deer season is a day off even though it’s not a holiday of any sort? In any event, do you really believe the people opposed to this would have a different opinion if rather than naming the holidays the calendar simply said “School closed” without giving a reason for those two days, while every other day has a reason of some sort? ( see the calendars here and here)
The comment is hardly irrelevant to the OP and your post, while a bit muddled, appears to come across as a reflexive opposition to “diversity.”
We already have diversity in a number of situations. While “Spring Break” in K-12 schools is nearly universally targeted to Easter while the (recently) renamed “Winter Break” is always centered on Christmas, school districts with large Jewish populations have been closing on the High Holy Days for years. The “diversity” mentioned simply reflects the increasing diversity of the population. As long as the schools are still opened for the 180 (or whatever) days currently mandated, the insertion of a couple of days to stretch out the year is not a serious problem. Attacking the proposal as “reducing” or “disrupting” the school year is a red herring at a time when schools already close for Washington’s Birthday/President’s Day, and a half dozen “Teacher Development” days, “Parent Conference Days,” “Hunting Season Opening Day” (in some states), to say nothing of “snow days” built into the calendar in the Northern states.
Should all schools across the country close for every religious feast? No. But when a significant portion of the population celebrates a day, it simply makes sense that the schools schedule that day as an off day.
It is irrelevant because the calendar was NOT changed because of high absenteeism.
How does one “oppose diversity”? What does that even mean?
What “significant portion” is absent on those two days? You have no idea, yet you, and others, keep pretending that that is the reason.
The mayor stated the reason: it’s to reflect diversity. That’s a stupid reason, unless you are also going to give all “diverse groups” their own days, too. What a mess.
If attendance is the reason, and that’s perfectly valid, as I’ve already stated, then say that. The mayor could have easily said,“to reflect diversity in NYC, and because of much higher than normal absenteeism on those days, we will now close on those holidays.”
It’s very telling that no one wants to defend the mayor’s decision based on the mayor’s own rationale, and instead people keep making up their own statistics.
I don’t see why “to reflect diversity” can’t be a shorthand for “well, you see, historically speaking school-going children have been so largely Christian that expanding standard school holidays beyond Christmas or otherwise Christian holiday times on the basis of high absenteeism hasn’t been a big problem, largely because there haven’t been high enough proportions of non-Christians in school populations to affect the normal running of the school. Now, though, it seems as though there are. To suit the changing demographics and to reflect the diversity of the current school population, we’re now going to add to our standard school holidays.”
What percentage earns a minority a day off? And is it only religious minorities or should racial minorities also get days off? How about sexual orientation minorities? Why not holidays that are important to certain ethnic groups?
Rather than trying to “reflect diversity” in the calendar, the calendar should reflect educationally sound principles that are important to the district. So, federal, state, and sometimes local holidays are recognized, if the district chooses. If Boston wants Evacuation Day off, schedule it that way. Inner cities take MLK day off, suburban ones don’t always.
The problem with religious holidays is in defining what is worthy of recognition. On some level, wouldn’t we agree that ALL religious holidays are worthy of acknowledgement? Yet, we can’t schedule the public schools that way, so we need some rational basis to close them. The reasonable metric is attendance.
But that is NOT the metric DeBlasio used. He just thinks it will be nice, and reflect diversity, to close the schools on Muslim holidays. I believe the real impetus was that muslims were complaining that Jewish holidays are listed and Islamic ones aren’t. (I have no evidence to support that assumption, like a lot of the posters on this thread who keep claiming attendance was the real reason for the closures.)
A “Day of Low Attendance” is a day off. But DeBlasio can’t call the Muslim holidays “Days of Low Attendance,” because they aren’t.
Yes. If the phrase, “to reflect diversity,” actually means, “attendance on those days is dipping dangerously close to threshold below which the state won’t count a day of school,” then we agree.
But if the phrase, “to reflect diversity,” actually means, “to reflect diversity,” then we don’t agree.
Because religious holidays often involve obligations that preclude work or school attendance while ethnic holidays generally don’t unless they are also religious holidays. I don’t know of any racial or sexual orientation holidays with the possible exception of Kwanzaa- and it falls during the NYC winter vacation.
So why exactly do you have a problem with the NYC school district scheduling Muslim holidays off for whatever reason they do so while you’re OK with Boston scheduling Evacuation day off for whatever reason they do so and suburban districts holding classes on MLK day (although it’s a Federal holiday) for whatever reason they do so and NYC scheduling Good Friday off for clearly religious reasons ? Is it simply because the word “diversity” is never used?
No, the reason was that Muslims have been complaining for years that their children are forced to miss a day of school for their major religious holidays while Christian and Jewish students do not - while schools are closed on many days that no one “celebrates” and other days that people may celebrate in a way that doesn’t impact attendance at work or school.
Not to mention the fact that the NYC school calendar doesn’t call any day off a “Day of Low Attendance” even if that’s the real reason ( such as the day after Thanksgiving).
In NYS (I don’t know about your state- it may be different) the state counts days on which attendance is taken (normal school days) , days on which Regents examinations, State Assessments or local examinations are given and superintendent’s conference days towards the 180 day minimum regardless of the actual attendance. Actual attendance is used to determine funding, not the minimum number of days.
So, basically, you are aggrieved by the word diversity and are going to make up any reason you can to oppose the program simply because the word was included in the explanation. You have explicitly noted that you have no problem with giving different groups the day off in different districts, yet you want to raise a fuss about NYC simply because the word diversity appeared in the declaration. You are complaining about a distinction without a difference.
Attacking the attendance level has no bearing on my post. I never said that they should close down for low attendance. I simply noted that it is a good thing to accommodate various groups in the system. What percent? I don’t know, although i would think that 10% meets some minimum standard.
That’s very strange. Your first summation doesn’t include all the parts of my suggestion - including those very words. And then your second summation includes the part you left out of the first one.
Perhaps I’m not being clear; “attendance on those days is dipping…” etc as a rationale for closing schools means absolutely nothing unless… well, diversity is reflected. It’s a perfectly reasonable shorthand; we’re doing this because of Reason X, which entails explanation Y. You’re presuming that the mayor’s use of it does and can only mean your limited interpretation. Not so. The happy thing about this is that actually my point is axiomatic; I can provide absolute proof that such an interpretation is both possible and plausible with ease.
No, NYC Christians have to miss school for Ash Wednesday services. School is not cancelled for them.
I already stated that the calendar should reflect educationally sound principles. DeBlasio’s reasons are not educationally sound; they are political pandering. Yes, DeBlasio will get thousands of Muslim votes in the next election, but that is hardly an educationally sound justification for manipulating the school calendar.
DeBlasio’s reason was to reflect diversity. Why can’t the Mexican kids have Cinco de Mayo off? The gay kids a day off to honor the Stonewall Riots? The communist kids May Day off? Any of those would “reflect diversity.”
It has nothing to do with attendance, and unless you have evidence to the contrary, it’s disingenuous to keep pretending that it does.
You caught me. I am aggrieved by diversity. I am actually a huge proponent of undiversity. I put a light in the window and sit up all night long screaming for more undiversity.
I have advocated for educationally sound reasons for a school calendar. Selecting “diversity winners and losers” is not sound reasoning. The Muslims now have their days, why not the gays, Mexicans, and communists? What are you, “aggrieved by diversity?”
Are you from New York. Lots of businesses are closed on Yom Kippur and I can assure you that any manager who tried to make a religiously observant Jew work on Yom Kippur barring extreme circumstances would be in serious legal trouble.
And which Christian denominations either require that people not attend work or school on Ash Wednesday or have other requirements that make such attendance impractical? (and receiving ashes doesn’t make attendance impractical-denomination that use the ritual generally have early morning and evening services) Which denominations even consider Ash Wednesday a major holiday?
Aside from the fact that he was speaking about a religious holiday and in that context it’s clear that he was referring to religious diversity, which of those involves the obligations I mentioned above.
Of course it has to do with attendance- even if it doesn’t decrease attendance enough to meet your standards (whatever they might be). Think about it- if the Muslim population in NYC is large enough to even bother pandering to it , then the Muslim population in public schools is almost certainly large enough for absences to make a difference. After all, no one in NYC panders to the Swedes or the Native Americans.
My high school was closed for a week for the county fair because we had students who were in FFA and would miss some days. I imagine such absences would have included far less than 10% of the school body, and no teachers. I am unfazed by any cries that allowing religious holidays is inappropriate, will cause some sort of cascading holiday fever, or will impact the education of the students.
As far as I know, all Christians can attend evening Ash Wednesday services. AND all Muslims can attend their religious services outside of school hours. Ramadan ends at sundown and the other holiday is some 4-day celebration, according to our friends at Wikipedia.
So it has nothing to do with attendance and everything to do with pandering to one group, just like DeBlasio said. There is no “in the best interests of students, teachers, and schools.” It’s “in the best interest of getting DeBlasio Muslim votes.”
If DeBlasio had a sound reason, I’d support it. He does not and I do not.
Educationally sound = attendance, local history (I’d close NYC schools every 11th of September), state holiday, federal holiday, conferences, professional development, or balancing the semesters.
Educationally unsound = one religion will be selected to “reflect diversity” on days they don’t miss school anyway.