Representatives of Hindu groups in New York City have expressed disappointment with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to exclude Diwali from the 2015-16 public school calendars. On March 4 the mayor announced that the new public school calendar will include two Muslim holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, but will not include the proposed holidays of Diwali and the Chinese New Year.
“Hundreds of thousands of Muslim families will no longer have to choose between honoring the most sacred days on their calendar or attending school,” de Blasio said in his announcement.
Muslim leaders, students and parents applauded the decision. “After years of advocating by New York City’s Muslim community, Muslim public school students will finally and thankfully no longer be penalized for observing their religious holidays,” said Zead Ramadan, a board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Helal Chowdhury, 15, a sophomore at Brooklyn Technical High School, told The New York Times that every year he had to choose between celebrating the holidays with his family and going to school so he would not fall behind. “This is a big step forward,” he said. “We’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
“While the addition of two Muslim holidays is commendable, the Mayor’s decision to exclude Diwali, a festival that is celebrated by thousands of Hindu, Jain, and Sikhs in NYC is beyond disappointing,” said Sheetal Shah, HAF’s NYC-based senior director. “These communities are a vibrant and integral part of this city and deserve to be able to celebrate their festival,” she said, adding that in excluding Diwali, the mayor is falling short on his responsibility to equally represent all New Yorkers.
Last year, HAF joined hands with a broad-based Diwali Coalition of almost 40 organizations and New York City temples that urged the mayor to include Diwali alongside two proposed Muslim holidays and Lunar New Year.
“We are truly disappointed by the mayor’s exclusion of Diwali as a public school holiday,” said Dr. Uma Mysorekar, president of the Ganesh Temple in Flushing, Queens. “Diwali is widely celebrated in this city and is an important time for families to be together. Our students should not have to worry about missing school work or exams in order to practice their faith.”
At least six school districts nationally, including Cambridge, Massachusetts.; Dearborn, Michigan.; Burlington, Vermont.; and Paterson and South Brunswick, New Jersey, have granted days off for the major Muslim holidays. Many more districts recognize the holidays in other ways, such as noting them on the school calendar or granting excused absences for observant students, The New York Times reported.
However, in November, education officials in Montgomery County, Maryland., reacted to a local campaign to recognize the Muslim holidays by deciding to eliminate all mention of religious holidays on their 2015-16 school calendar, including Rosh Hashanah and Christmas. Instead, those days would be simply marked as days off.
Meanwhile in neighboring New Jersey, the Edison Board of Education added two new days off to the 2015-2016 school calendar in recognition of Edison’s ever growing diverse population at the meeting held March 3.The board voted unanimously to add the holiday of Diwali on November 12, and to observe the Lunar New Year, more commonly referred to as the Chinese New Year on Feb. 8, 2016.
“I am quite elated to see the calendar has been changed around,” said Dr. Frank Heelan, Edison Board of Education vice president. “This is something that should have been done a while ago; certainly we have a big demographic population of terrific Asian-Americans in our community.”