City kids can expect more breaks from school under the next administration, after both of the leading mayoral candidates agreed Wednesday that two major Muslim holidays deserve to be observed.
Democratic nominee Bill de Blasio and Republic rival Joe Lhota both support recognizing Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as public school holidays – a move advocates have been seeking for years.
“We have a growing Muslim community in the city of New York and their religion needs to be respected as all other religions are respected,”
Lhota said after a visit Wednesday to a kosher soup kitchen in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
“A child has an exam on a day that is one of the Eid holidays. They are either respecting their religious obligation or they are doing what their education requires them – but they can’t do both under out current system,” de Blasio said during an earlier Brooklyn rally with Muslim supporters. “It’ll take some time to resolve but I know we can do it.”
Eid al-Fitr, which concludes a month of fasting during Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca, occur on different dates each year.
In 2014, Eid al-Fitr will fall on July 29 – during summer school – and Eid al-Adha will be Oct. 5.
Two school days would likely have to be added to the calendar in order to meet the state’s minimum requirement of 180 days, but the United Federation of Teachers already agreed back in 2008 to help work out the logistics.
The City Council passed a resolution in 2009 calling on the city schools system to recognize the holidays, given that an estimated 12 percent of public school kids are Muslim.
But Mayor Bloomberg and some Council members opposed the move out of concern that too many academic days were being lost.
Yahoo Local News – New York Post
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