Park released the 2025-26 calendar with circles over two dates: Rosh HaShanah and Eid-al-Adha. This year, Park students had both of these holidays off of school. However, on next year’s calendar, they are marked as “district recognized.” The district website’s calendar page shows a message regarding the change and staff and students alike have thoughts on the switch.
Junior Ben Ribnick said it’s unfair that some religious holidays like Christmas and Easter have the day off of school, while school is still in session for others.
“I celebrate Rosh Hashanah, and to celebrate it, I go to synagogue,” Ribnick said. “I’m pretty upset about (holidays) being removed from the calendar. It’s not that fair because Christmas and Easter are usually taken off of school, but these holidays aren’t.”
Junior Nasiira Ade said Park needs to be aware of its largely Muslim and Jewish student body, and allow for their religious calendars to be accommodated.
“I understand that it’s hard for the school sometimes because they (have to) follow the government rules, but it’s also 2025,” Ade said. “We should recognize students in our school, especially (since) the Muslim population in the school is really big, same with the Jewish students. It’s important to follow those (calendars) as well because we all follow the Christian calendar.”
According to social studies teacher Scott Miller, the removal of these holidays may be related to state requirements for the length of the school year.
“The state requires a certain number of days that (school) is in session, so when the school district is determining its calendar, they have to stay within a certain number of days,” Miller said. “If you have those days off (of school), then it either has to (extend) into the first part of the school year, which is mandated by the state that (school) can’t start before Labor Day, or it comes at the end.”
Ribnick said the holidays’ removal may cause students to fall behind in classes from having to skip school to celebrate.
“(Students who celebrate holidays where school is still in session) will have to skip school and then they’ll have to catch up, so (there will be) extra work for them, which is unfair,” Ribnick said.
According to Ade, many students will be conflicted on whether to prioritize the importance of grades versus their religious holidays, and that many may miss out on family time.
“Especially since Eid this year will follow our finals schedule, some students will have to pick their holiday over their final, which is pretty unfair,” Ade said. “They’re supposed to spend that time with their family instead of coming to school and taking a test.”
Miller said while students may be disadvantaged by the calendar change, many teachers will provide courtesy to students by cutting down on homework.
“Obviously (students) taking off time puts them at a disadvantage because they are going to miss classroom instruction,” Miller said. “I know I and a lot of teachers dial back what we’re doing that day, knowing that we’re going to miss a number of kids and not wanting them to miss out.”
Ade said Park should find a way for students to get these holidays off as it’s hard for students to balance grades and religious holidays.
“Some students here at the school, I know that they really care about their grades, so it’s hard to pick their beliefs or their grades, so for them to try to figure out how to balance that is hard,” Ade said. “I believe that they should figure out when to cancel those dates because, especially with Eid, you don’t know the exact date until the night before, so they should follow that calendar.”
Miller said he allows extra time for students in his class who may need to take time off school for holidays and to prioritize individual assignments so students don’t fall behind to celebrate religious holidays. He said the administration has consistently encouraged Park’s teachers to do this as well.
“What I’ll do is allow extra time. I’ll try to have some activity that would be more of an individual activity that day so that the students who are missing due to religious holidays can make it up (during) their own time and aren’t going to be missing a lot of heavy instruction that day,” said Miller. “We never used to have those dates off when I first started in the district, (but) we were strongly influenced or suggested that we take into account that students were going to be gone those days and (to) make sure that our instruction wouldn’t hurt them in any way for missing the class.”
