Wednesday, October 26, 2011 is a day listed as a normal school day for students in the WW-P school district.
However, students of Hindu backgrounds who are celebrating Diwali will not be penalized if they take off for religious observation, WW-P officials say.
Despite news last month that the South Brunswick school district included Diwali in its calendar of school holidays — meaning school will be closed for the religious observance — schools will be open as usual in WW-P.
Diwali is not a day that has been designated as a holiday on the WW-P school district’s 2011-’12 calendar, which was approved in December, confirmed School Board President Hemant Marathe.
But Gerri Hutner, the district’s director of communications, said that the religious holiday is on a list of over 70 holidays officially approved by the state Department of Education for which students are excused without being penalized.
“Students who take off for any religious holiday that’s in the accepted list for the state of New Jersey, it’s not counted toward their absence lists,” she said. “It’s not counted as an absence.”
Other holidays on the state-wide list include holidays for Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Wiccan, and many more religions. For example, the Islamic holiday of Eid al Fitr, as well as the Hindu holiday of Ganesha Chaturthi, are both on that list.
A Hindu group released a press release last month in which Hindus applauded the South Brunswick district for declaring Diwali as a school holiday.
In a statement, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, said that awareness about other religions created by such holidays would make the South Brunswick School District pupils “well-nurtured, well-balanced, and enlightened citizens of tomorrow.” He also said it would bring cohesion and unity in the community.
Diwali, the festival of lights, aims at dispelling the darkness and lighting up the lives, and symbolizes the victory of good over evil.
When asked whether WW-P will consider creating a religious holiday for Diwali, Marathe said the district had already approved the calendar for next year.
From what he can remember, “there have been a couple of requests in the past, but the board has not discussed it to any extent,” he said. “It’s not on the agenda as we speak.”
While the district does not keep records of students’ individual religious backgrounds or nationalities, there is a large Indian American presence in the WW-P district. The district does keep records of ethnicity, broken down into five categories, one of which is Asian, and 51 percent of WW-P students are of Asian descent.
