Posted on 05/28/2004 10:26:52 AM PDT by NYer
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) _ Atlantic City has become the fourth school district in New Jersey to recognize Muslim holidays.
The city's board of education approved districtwide days off for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, two sacred Islamic holidays, for the upcoming school year. Previously, under state law Muslim students and teachers were allowed to take off Islamic holidays without being penalized.
According to Superintendent Fredrick P. Nickles, about 560 of the city's 7,800 children are Muslim. Board member Cornell Davis, who is Muslim, called the decision ``courageous'' in light of current tensions between Americans and Islamic extremists. ``It shows a lot of character about us as Americans,'' Davis told The Press of Atlantic City.
Eid al-Fitr, a festival celebrating the breaking of the fast of Ramadan, will be observed on Nov. 15. Eid al-Adha, a festival of sacrifice and pilgrimage, will be observed on Jan. 21.
To fit the two holidays into the school calendar, officials reduced the number of days schools can take off for emergencies from six to four. That means if schools close for snow or other emergencies more than four days, the days would have to be made up during spring recess or on Saturdays in June, Nickles said.
School districts in Trenton, Paterson and Irvington already recognize Islamic holidays.
AP-ES-05-28-04 1312EDT
They'll be consumed by their own hatred, along with the rest of us.
| The city's board of education approved districtwide days off for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, two sacred Islamic holidays, for the upcoming school year. Previously, under state law Muslim students and teachers were allowed to take off Islamic holidays without being penalized. According to Superintendent Fredrick P. Nickles, about 560 of the city's 7,800 children are Muslim. Board member Cornell Davis, who is Muslim, called the decision ``courageous'' in light of current tensions between Americans and Islamic extremists. ``It shows a lot of character about us as Americans,'' Davis told The Press of Atlantic City. Eid al-Fitr, a festival celebrating the breaking of the fast of Ramadan, will be observed on Nov. 15. Eid al-Adha, a festival of sacrifice and pilgrimage, will be observed on Jan. 21.
|
Are you kidding, Saturday school? I can't imagine this going over too big in Margate. Don't they have the same school system, or are they separate?
|
We need two days of our own....
>i know this contradicts what some post, read & think here >on FR but even in Barcelona...
I agree!! As much as everyone wants to point the finger, this garbage started here! And here it remains.
Ha, this school district has abolished teacher inservice days. I was informed that they no longer get money from the state if a child misses school from illness. That used to be the case. Some parents would send their kids to school with contagious illnesses anyway, and now it's being encouraged.
There isn't any meaningful mention of any religion in this district. The last "Christmas" pageant they had featured cowboy songs. My daughter hitched a ride with the neighbors down the street, because I boycotted it. Now if they had rolled everyone's winter religious holidays into one program, that would have been cool.
Spring break starts the day after Easter Sunday. The community college keeps the traditional schedule. When I attended that school, there were provisions for students to take certain afternoons off, for offsite religious study. My how times have changed.
This school district in the article has come out and publicly stated that these new vacation days are for Muslims. It's good for kids to learn about other cultures, but not at the expense of their own.
uh, whatever happened to separation of church and state?
we haven't had an Easter holiday or Christmas holiday in years for fear of offending someone and I work at a private Catholic university!!!
In Los Angeles, the ACLU is campaigning FURIOUSLY to remove a tiny cross on the county seal after sucessfully forcing the City of Redlands to use duct tape to cover any crosses on their seal.
Yet having the government decree complete disruption of a normal business for a particular religion is just fine. The hippie kooks running local governments these days should get real jobs.
Catholics have many saints
Some school districts have banned Good Friday, and now have Easter Monday...but many want to do away with that....amazing isn't it?
All I know is my sales managers always said "the DAY AFTER Thanksgiving will be our BIGGEST day of the year - never failed and never was. It was always the biggest day of REFUNDS!
Spread the word--Atlantic City is OUT as a vacation destination.
I have a big, big problem with this. The schools in my area do not close for a single Christian holiday. (Easter is always on a Sunday and Christmas is a national holiday that falls when the schools are closed anyway.) Although the schools close for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, that has nothing to do with repsect for the Jewish religion, but rather, reflects the reality that a significant minority of teachers are Jewish and the cost of closing the schools for the day is a lot less than the cost of trying to find and retain substitute teachers. I bet the number of Muslim Teachers in the Atlantic City School District is no more than a handful and that the decision to close the school has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with showing respect for a so-called religion.
Outrageous! Islamics are taking over our country like they have France. Blooey!
"I think if I had kids in that school system that I would find all sorts of Christian holidays to observe and keep my kids out of school to observe them."
Heck, just start recognizing the various feast days of the Catholic saints: That will easily take care of 365 days a year.
May 1
So, let all the muslim kids and teachers have school on Thanksgiving and Martin L. King day instead. The ragheads don't give a sh!t about those days!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.