Fairfax County Public Schools is running a survey right now asking parents which trade-offs they’d accept to get more full five-day school weeks. One of the options is eliminating days off for religious and cultural observances, like Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, Diwali, and Eid al-Fitr. Not specifically singling out just Christmas. The survey closes June 22nd.
On the spring break thing, they’ve tried decoupling it from Easter in past years to avoid lining up with any religious holiday, which frustrated a lot of families. The district’s juggling tons of added observance days, which has chopped up the calendar, parents are tired of fragmented weeks. The survey’s their way of gauging what people actually want to cut.
Most of those “added observances” aren’t full school closure days. They’re “O days” on the calendar, school stays open, but they can’t schedule tests, quizzes, field trips, or big events, and kids get excused absences if they stay home.
The big additions over the last few years were recognizing holidays like Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur this way, along with others like Lunar New Year, Nowruz, Ramadan, and various Orthodox Christian days. Some years a few do line up with full closures or early releases, like certain Eids or Yom Kippur, which is why the calendar feels so chopped up.
Diwali’s Hindu, Eid al-Fitr is Muslim, Nowruz is Persian, Iranian and Kurdish. Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah are Jewish, and Lunar New Year covers a bunch of Asian cultures. Muslim holidays, but they’re all lumped together in the “added observances” bucket.
Democrats run Fairfax County, school board, county board, everything, and they pushed hard for these extra religious observance days starting around 2021, adding stuff like Diwali, Eid, and more Jewish holidays to the list of “O days.”
The current survey floating cutting Christmas too is their fix for the mess they helped create. A lot of local parents are pissed and letting them know it.