Many Md. schools don't acknowledge religious holidays

[rug]

Schools use secular terms, like "Winter Holiday" or "Spring Break," to describe closings.

STEPHEN WALDRON, CAPITAL NEWS SERVICE 4:24 p.m. EST December 19, 2014

This school year, 14 of Maryland's 24 school systems will not recognize any religious holidays — such as Christmas and Rosh Hashanah — by name.

The 14 include every school system on the Eastern Shore, and five others around the state.

These districts instead use secular terms, like "Winter Holiday" or "Spring Break," to describe the school closings.

The 10 districts that will recognize religious holidays by name during this school year include Howard, Prince George's and Montgomery counties.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2014/12/19/maryland-schools-religious-holidays/20652381/

[nichomachus]

1. Good for them n/t

[No Vested Interest]

2. Not a bad idea actually. Let the parents/families make these

holidays/breaks as religious as they wish.
Those to whom a religious celebration doesn't matter, etc., can do their own thing.

[Heddi]

3. I think school should be year round, kind of like college, with

breaks between every quarter, like college.

Rather than giving kids 2 big breaks a year -- summer for 3 months and then the thing in the winter, there would be time throughout the year. It would be easier on parents because everyone wouldn't be scrambling for that coveted summer time for vacation, or those 2 weeks between christmas and new years to visit grandma.

IT's silly. Even when I was in high school it was called Spring Break, not easter break. Winter break, not Christmas break. And this was in deep south carolina in the 80's-90's.

Go to school Jan - March, have a break. Go April - June, have a break, maybe a little longer. July - September, have a break. October - December, have a break. Make it regular, make it predictable. Easier on students, not such a crunch for learning.

[cpwm17]

5. Some schools do a year-round schedule

They do in the elementary school where my parent live in south San Diego. We moved there when I was in 6th grade. It's nine weeks in school with three weeks vacation. I got lucky since I got my full summer vacation before starting in the school and then I got all of the extra time off through the school year. I then got a normal summer vacation before starting 7th grade.

I didn't miss much since the school was very bad in the 1970's when I was there.

[Prophet 451]

4. No particular reason they should

Leave it to the family to make the holiday religious if they want it to be.

[Bad Thoughts]

6. But they will still give time off to coincide with them?

Seems more semantic than courageous.

And will there be a Fall Break to coincide with Rosh Hashanah, or was that included in the annoucement in order to make it seem that all groups were suffering exclusions.

[cbayer]

7. They did this because they had a request from a muslim group to add

a specific muslim holiday.

Apparently they recognized that this could get out of hand quickly, so they changed their policy. They give time off for the periods when attendance would drop below a certain rate. That is clearly going to be associated with specific holidays, some religious, some not.

But they chose to remove the labels.

I have mixed feelings about it, but overall I think it was a reasonable compromise.