Region 16 School District Considers Muslim Holidays

How about all the other religous holidays for the 100's of other religions?

Has the Student Council proposed where to make up for the 2 lost days of school? I am assume the students are OK with extending the school year by 2 days. Other questions comes to mind - 1) Will the teachers get paid fot these days? 2) Are there any other religions that should be honored - maybe Halloween should be a day off for those who believe in warlocks and witches? If we keep this up, kids may as well be in school year round. At least this way they get all their dyas off and go to school 180 days.

Former Democrat wrote:

How about all the other religous holidays for the 100's of other religions?

Yes, perhaps we should consider holidays for all other religions, then schools, government offices, banks, etc could be open, maybe 5 days a year.

What a bunch of whack jobs. These kids are going to be in school in July with all of these "Holidays".

Majority rules and if the majority of the kids are Muslim them give them the days off, but that means they go to school on Christmas and Easter. You can't give everyone everything.

There are many fringe religions, beliefs, Holidays. You can't grant them all, you have to stick with the majority and with the customs of this country as well. The school board could simply state that if a student needs to stay home on one of these Holidays that they will not be penalized by any teacher. Major tests and field trips would not be planned on these days to avoid exclusion.

This is nuts! And yet they want us to take the word "God" out of the Pledge of Allegience? What is American coming to?????

Do not get it wrote:

Has the Student Council proposed where to make up for the 2 lost days of school?

I'm sure they will probably lop off two "Christian" holidays.

"Hope" and "Change" folks!

What about Jewish holidays? What about Chinese New Years? How about former Governor Dempsey's birthday? How about former Governor Rowland's conviction day? How about the birthday of the Three Stooges? How about Obama's first day he opened his eyes?

They should just give the students two discrecionary "holidays" to use as they need for whatever religion they belong to. Period! Then, who cares if its used for Muslim, Jehovah Witness, Seventh Day, Eighth Day or whatever religion they claim to be. I'm Christian. I don't get Good Friday off, but I have three floating holidays, so I can take it off if so desired. Problem solved!

This is absurd....

1.) The percentage of students that are of this faith must be 1/2 of 1% or something equally as minicule. Having a public holiday for such an under-represented event makes no sense.

2.) Our schools already have far too many holidays, teacher in service training days, etc... As it is, children have only one full month break in the summer in which to still "be kids".

3.)As the previous poster pointed out, there are many, many other religions that are not represented withing our vacation schedules. Most of which, I can assure you, have a FAR greater representation than Muslims within our school systems.

4.) The American people are not yet ready top tollerate such an event. Regardless of how the PR/PC people paint it, it is simply too close to 9/11 for the majority of the public to accept. Although the Muslim population within our borders may not see this as a holy war, the remainder of the world's Muslims do. Although the well intneded of this country might feel recognizing such holidays would better our relations with Muslims, it would only be used as propaganda to prove our lack of resolve. "Right/Wrong" aside, this is what will happen.....

WOW wrote:

What a bunch of whack jobs. These kids are going to be in school in July with all of these "Holidays".
Majority rules and if the majority of the kids are Muslim them give them the days off, but that means they go to school on Christmas and Easter. You can't give everyone everything.
There are many fringe religions, beliefs, Holidays. You can't grant them all, you have to stick with the majority and with the customs of this country as well. The school board could simply state that if a student needs to stay home on one of these Holidays that they will not be penalized by any teacher. Major tests and field trips would not be planned on these days to avoid exclusion.

Well, I don't don't care about any religious holidays personally, but I am a proponent of year round school. Ten weeks off in the summer is just too long. Kids should get more short breaks through the year in stead of one huge block of time off in the summer. In stead of summer school, kids that are no doing well would be given a chance to catch up with their classmates rather than falling behind for a whole year.

Or maybe the schools should just give floating holidays so each religion could take its own special days of. I don't see why we have to be so politically correct all of the time.

messedupworld wrote:

This is nuts! And yet they want us to take the word "God" out of the Pledge of Allegience? What is American coming to?????

Actually they want to take the word "God" out of your everyday life.
Typical Liberal agenda.

Former Democrat wrote:

How about all the other religous holidays for the 100's of other religions?

Three Abrahamic religions - Christianity, Judaism, and Islam - plus Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism encompass probably more than 90% of the world's apiritual adherents and don't equal "hundreds" of other religions. There are other religions and thousands of sects, syncretized and tribal/folk religions (as well as cults)but the vast majority fall under the former categories. Regardless of how many world religions there are the district would likely not consider observing a group's holidays unless there's a critical mass of students identifying as such. They must have already established that criterion, so resorting to calls to honor Wicca, Santeria or Confucianism is just a specious argument.

Private Sector wrote:

They should just give the students two discrecionary "holidays" to use as they need for whatever religion they belong to. Period! Then, who cares if its used for Muslim, Jehovah Witness, Seventh Day, Eighth Day or whatever religion they claim to be. I'm Christian. I don't get Good Friday off, but I have three floating holidays, so I can take it off if so desired. Problem solved!

Listen, what should happen is immigrants that come to this country should acclimate to this society, a society that our founding fathers stated clearly in both our constitution and our bill of rights.
If you dont like it leave, go back to where you came from or keep your mouth shut.
If that is difficult to understand it is because you have chosen not to acclimate to our society and instead have taken on the task of changing our society to fit what you think is best.
Get out if you dont like it and dont let the door hit you in the as s on the way out.

I agree with Mark the Shark, this is ridiculous.

And furthermore who is running the show the students or the parents...this is dispicable.

either the rules apply to everyone or they don't apply to anyone

This is all liberal feel good crap. I have no problem with them taking Ramadam off as long as it is celebrated on Sept. 11th.

If I lived in those two towns I'd be demanding the entire board of education resign, idiots!

To honor a religion that is against everything that this country stands for, is a slap in the face to all who have died defending it.

Mark Twain: First God made idiots. That was practice. Then He made school boards.

Why don't we all stay home and never go to school---