Islamic holidays for public schools

Muslim holidays for NYC schools- Washington Post

This article was online yesterday- the NYC city council wants to make Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha official holidays for the public schools. I recommend reading the article, but you probably should skip the comments unless you like tearing your hair out in frustration over other people's ignorance and obnoxiousness. It's bad enough that NYC Mayor Bloomberg opposes it.

When I was in high school, there was a fairly large population of Muslim students (mostly from Pakistan & India). I remember some of my friends leaving early on Fridays during Ramadan to go to Friday prayers. There were no official Islamic holidays- you could be excused for religious reasons, but it involved missing classes and some teachers were less understanding than others about absences. We had a number of days off, for teacher work days, holidays like Labor Day and Thanksgiving, and also two Jewish holidays (there's a large Jewish population where I grew up). Adding two Islamic holidays would have made things earlier for Muslim kids at my high school, both in practical terms and as a way of recognizing them as part of the community.

I don't know what the fairest way to decide what holidays to include in a certain area, but sticking to the status quo of only Christian (and sometimes Jewish) holidays regardless of the demographics of the school district certainly isn't fair.