New Push to Close Jersey City Schools for Muslim Holy Days
Parents and Muslim leaders have attended two meetings in the last month to urge school officers to add Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as holidays on the school calendar (in the upcoming school year, only Eid al-Adha falls on a school day). School board members are expected to make the decision this week.
Jessica Abdelnabbi, a Muslim parent of three girls, told The Jersey Journal the issue is "very simple."
"We're diverse," Abdelnabbi said. "We're only asking for one day."
An image of the tentative2016-17 school calendar posted by a parent to Facebook shows the district does not plan to close for Eid al-Adha, which this year begins on Monday, Sept. 12 and ends the following day. The board is scheduled to vote on approving next year's calendar on Thursday.
Requests for comment from Board of Education President Vidya Gangadin were not returned.
School districts statewide have been adding Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to their school calendars, including in Paterson, Trenton and Atlantic City. Last year, New York City became the first major metropolitan city to close its schools for the holidays.
In March, Clifton's school district, after twice rejecting a move to close schools for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, approved adding them to the calendar.
Muslim Jersey City parents pressed the school district to close the district on the two holidays during this school year, but the move was voted down in September by the school board.
Source: NJ
