In the past several years, the Passaic and South Brunswick school districts have made Diwali a district-wide holiday, meaning all the schools are closed for Diwali, the festival of lights.
The newly released WW-P Demographics Study says that 54 percent of students enrolled in 2011-’12 are Asian, mainly Chinese and Indian. The WW-P Board of Education has been discussing making floating holidays for Diwali and Chinese New Year Day.
The school board has several concerns:
1) The law requires at least 180 school days in an academic year, excluding national holidays, faculty professional development days, parent-teacher conference days, emergency weather closings, etc.
2) A school year cannot begin earlier than September 3 or end later than the third week of June.
3) If floating holidays are set for Diwali and Chinese New Year Day, other ethnic groups may demand their own holidays; and if so, should their demands be honored?
4) On the proposed floating holidays, what should teachers do? Teaching new content is unfair to the students who are absent; reviewing old material is unjust to those who are present.
I share the school board’s concerns and appreciate their willingness to discuss the issue. I have additional concerns:
1) Diwali and Chinese New Year should be treated equally, as Indian and Chinese are the two main Asian ethnic groups in the WW-P district. I don’t want to see just one holiday get honored while the other is ignored.
2) If any decision is made regarding these holidays, I don’t want the changes to affect other ethnic groups or the number of school days.
3) WW-P has traditionally closed schools on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Let’s keep the tradition.
With all these concerns in mind, I studied the WW-P 2012-’13 school year calendar and compared it with that of the South Brunswick district. My temporary solution is to move two professional development days (PDDs) to Diwali and Chinese New Year. For the 2012-’13 school year, there were three PDDs: Tuesday and Wednesday, September 4 and 5, and Thursday, February 14. We can move the second and third PDDs to Diwali and Chinese New Year, respectively. On those new PDDs, teachers and staff can continue with their program while students stay home. If either of these holidays falls on a weekend, move that PDD to a different ethnic holiday.
What other ethnic holidays are important to WW-P residents? During the 2011 holiday season Plainsboro’s Human Relations Council hosted a discussion for residents on religious holidays including Chanukah, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Eid, and Kwanzaa. I gave the presentation on Chinese New Year. Kwanzaa is celebrated between Christmas and New Year’s Day, when schools are closed. That means we only need to consider Chanukah and Eid for future calendars.
However, my proposal can potentially cause a big problem. With the current schedule, students start the new school year on the Thursday after Labor Day. With my proposal, students will have to start on Wednesday, one day earlier. This will impact family vacation plans, as many families travel around Labor Day. If parents have strong opinions on this proposal, we can adjust another closing day.
I will discuss this topic with various groups of parents, including Chinese, Indian, and other ethnic groups to get more feedback. Before any changes to the calendar, the school district should survey parents and try to make all involved parties happy.
Yu “Taylor” Zhong
Plainsboro
The writer is a candidate for WW-P Board of Education, representing Plainsboro Township.
