In my local school district they did the following one year. First they gave kids off Holy Thursday and Good Friday. Then they called them back in on Monday and Tuesday – both days of Passover. Then then gave them off the rest of the week. It was religious discrimination plain and simple and I raised a stink about it to local school officials. They have, IMO, repeatedly attempted to turn the local schools into the local church. Or as much of a stink as I could manage when eight and a half months pregnant. My daughter has been asked to do assignments that include Christmas Around the World and other efforts to imply that Christianity is the norm and other religions strange and bizarre. One of my neighbors was horrified over my protest and has stopped speaking to me over it. She’s a hypocritical bitch who loves to show up and whine about how we don’t need to have off any Jewish holidays at the start of the year because it is unfair to the Christian majority. The district down the road from me is about half Jewish. She’d scream bloody murder if they tried to do to Christianity what she and and her ilk routinely do to Jews like me.
Public schools should not observe religious holidays of any kind. I will keep my girls out on Yom Kippur and Rosh Ha’shanah. You can keep your kids on your religious holidays. No tests will be scheduled on any major religious holiday. We’ll all be better off.
Thanksgiving is an American holiday not a religious one. Christmas is a federal holiday so I don’t see the schools having much of a choice. I’d just rather they call it winter break. People who want a religious education for their kids should go private. As a religious minority in my local district, I’m just sick and tired of having to be constantly on the defensive all the damned time. Christianity is just a religious belief as is Judaism and any other religion. No one should have special rights based on religious beliefs.
The is the United States of America goddamn it. Not the Christian United States or the Jewish United States. If I wanted the latter I’d have moved to Israel and been done with it. I did not think moving to a town in northern NJ would mean that I would have to constantly be on the alert for local teachers trying to indoctrinate my kids. Even last year, when we had to make up school dates because of lots of snow they decided those dates should be Passover.
Ugh. This is 2015, not 1915 when my grandmother was forced to sing Christian hymns praising Jesus in high school. I cannot believe I’m facing some of the same issues that she had to cope with.
But doesn’t that kinda get back tot he same problem? What’s a major religious holiday? Why should we not schedule tests for those days? If we’re not closing school, why not treat it like any other day, and if the kids miss a test, oh well?
Okay then how about we allow all kids to get permission to retake a test if they have a religious holiday on a testing date? We do that around here if a kid misses a test because of an illness. My eldest once had a nasty fever on a state testing day. The school had no trouble letting her take it on another day.
Why can’t we have one place in our society where secularism rules? Isn’t that ultimately the best way to teach all kids how to get along in a diverse society?
You haven’t made a good argument for why you wouldn’t want to close the school on a day where a significant number of students won’t be there, for whatever reason. They close schools for the first day of hunting season in some places, and for the potato harvest in others. You’re getting hung up on the fact that it’s a religious holiday, when the real reason is you don’t want to have school when a high percentage of students are going to be absent.
I would say that Christians are more maligned in America than Muslims. I don’t recall any jokes about Allah/Muhammed/Islam, ever, on Youtube. And, how many Muslims have been mistreated that you can name? I can’t think of any, and I’ve had a lot of Muslim friends/gfs/associates.
Nobody is talking about special rights or privileges. If a school board tried to hold classes on December 25, there would be absolutely nobody there. Maybe 3 or 4 people at most. So the school board has a choice: keep the schools open in a futile attempt to make some sort of point, or it can simply close the schools because there will be no learning happening that day.
And that is what the decision should be based upon: enough people will be absent that it makes no sense to try and hold school. In my state, the first day of deer hunting season is a school holiday. When I was in school, they tried to keep it open, but so many teachers, bus drivers, and students called out “sick” that it was a worthless day. When I was in South Florida, there was enough of a Jewish population that school was closed on Yom Kippur; that’s not a necessity in other areas of the country.
Religion and pandering to minority groups should play no part in the decision to close school. I believe that in every part of the country, an absence for a religious holiday is an excused absence, so I cannot see how any religious group is harmed by a decision to keep the schools open. Plus this pandering causes missed instructional days. If only 2% of the students and faculty will be observing the holiday, why close the school and give 98% of them a “free” day that has to be made up in the summer?
What world are you living in? Muslims rank just above atheists (who are at the bottom) in polls measuring who people find trustworthy CONSTANTLY. The American Christian trend toward attempting to mangle reality to fit the persecution predictions in the Bible is incredibly annoying and, really, crazy.
ETA: Oh, and I’m horribly sorry you all have to settle for being the most numerically superior religion in the country, only have 99% of Congress and 100% of presidents adhering to your faith, and setting grassfires in local and state politics trying to carve out a special little niche just for Christianity. It must be horrible.
OK, show me ONE video on Youtube that maligns any Muslims for believing the Koran and anything about it. :dubious::dubious:
ETA: Sorry, can’t help you about your grassfires and whatever you are going on about.
I’m having a hard time understanding your point here, since there are far more comments, videos, jokes, insults, etc against Muslims in the US than any other religion. Christianity is the largest religion by far so it will attract a certain amount of commentary, but the level of vitriol and sheer hatred directed against Christians is tiny in comparison.
Can you point to some places where Christianity is maligned that isn’t duplicated 10 fold by folks attacking Islam?
These so called Christian holidays Christmas and Easter celebrated by Christians and atheists alike are really the pagan holidays that celebrated the solstice and the spring equinox prior to the introduction of Christianity.
I don’t see any need to accomodate any religion as far as holidays are concerned.
We all (I’m Canadian) can share in the celebration of the winter solstice and spring equinox as residents of the northern hemisphere any way we like .
We don’t need new holidays that don’t mean anything to the rest of us.
And how many kids are will be absent on Good Friday or Holy Thursday? Because those are two local holidays that kids get off each year around here. As an adult, I’ve never run into anyone who took off Holy Thursday. Have you? Schools need to adhere to the principle of religious neutrality. It’s best for all concerned including Christians.
I agree that Maundy Thursday and Good Friday should be school days. I grew up Catholic with devout parents (when I was a kid. They were slackers later on) and there was never any hint or thought that we wouldn’t go to school on those days.