From MoCoVox news:
Councilman says stay home for Muslim Holiday
Published on Monday, 23 September 2013
ROCKVILLE—Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal will join the
Equality 4 Eid Coalition and community leaders at 3:30 p.m. on Monday,
Sept. 23, in Rockville as they urge
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) staff and students—Muslim and
non-Muslim—to stay home from school on Tuesday, Oct. 15, to help
celebrate the holiday Eid al-Adha in solidarity with their Muslim
friends.
Read the entire story at:
Good for George. :)
ReplyDeleteLots of other elected officials are also on board with this campaign: http://equality4eid.com/who-else-supports-equality-.html
Will the councilman urge students and staff to stay home on Tet? What about major holidays for other faiths?
ReplyDeleteThe day may come when there will be a court challenge regarding the closure of schools on religious holidays. Close for all or close for none. I say close for none.
So you're good with school on Christmas then? :-)
Deletesenior skip day endorsed by Council
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that Mr. Leventhal's heart is in the right place and he's not just pandering to a another segment of the electorate (election in 2014), but it's hard to believe that a Montgomery County Council member is advocating that students should cut classes. Based on MCPS attendance policy (so as it is), some students, who already have a small number of tardies or unexcused absences could be penalized with detention or suspension, if they cut school, when Mr. Leventhal suggests . Will Mr. Lenventhal take the heat for those students? And why is a Montgomery County Councilmember advocating for something like this, when our schools are in disarray... 60+ % fail math exams, unprecedented achievement gap, illiterate high school graduates, etc.? Why is Mr. Leventhal rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic???
ReplyDeleteGeorge Leventhal needs to do his homework (no pun intended). There is a mechanism to observe religious holidays. It's called an excused absence. Yes, a culture shift needs to occur among our MCPS staff to be sensitive to and respectful of a student's religious obligations. That translates to not scheduling tests on religious holidays, being mindful of project due dates, etc. but the school system cannot nor should not determine their calendar based on multiple religions' holy days. They must, instead, solely rely on attendance data to determine appropriate days off. Why George would want to mix religion and state is beyond most of us...except that he wants more votes? That's not good leadership on his part.
ReplyDeleteAgreed
DeleteI don't think anyone except Anon 5:39 above was advocating working on Christmas, and then only indirectly: "Close for all or close for none. I say close for none." And then CrunchyMama asked if s/he would be OK with school being open on Christmas.
ReplyDeleteHow'd it get to BE a Federal holiday, anyway? It's a Christian holiday, plunked on top of a Pagan holiday (Yule) - but there it is. But if one has a "Close for all or close for none" mentality, it doesn't hurt to try on the idea of going in to school or work on a religious holiday that would otherwise be a day off for most of the country. Live a little.