Above: Preliminary options for calendars covered the range of adding more religious holiday observances to eliminating them all together. (image edited from presented options)
Last week, members of the Northborough, Southborough, and Regional school committees discussed options being vetted for next year’s NSBORO school calendar. Preliminary versions demonstrated possible ways to handle religious and cultural holidays for an increasingly diverse school community.
Options included adding more religious holidays. But they also included discontinuing (or downgrading) existing school holidays for religious observances. That possibility prompted some parents to speak out in protest.
During public comment at the start of the meeting, three parents expressed upset over the need to repeatedly fight for the schools to respect the Jewish high holidays — Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Southborough’s Jessica Levenson said it was “painful” that the community has to educate the school committee about the issue.
During the Combined School Committee’s discussion, members clarified that the Calendar Advisory Working Group had been asked to present multiple calendars covering the full range of options. And one member of the Working Group indicated the group is more likely to expand the list of holidays.
The Working Group will continue to look at calendar options this winter. The plan is to make a presentation with a recommendation at the next Combined School Committee meeting in March.*
The purpose of last week’s discussion was to solicit feedback from the school committees on their thinking and process to date. Before voting on the options, the group wanted to know if there was missing perspectives that school committee members want to be considered in their recommendation or data that should be included in their March presentation.
The versions presented were Options:
- Days off for 7 holidays when they fall on school days (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Lunar New Year, Good Friday and Eid al-Fitr) (25-26, 26-27, and 27-28)
- Half Days for 7 holidays when they fall on school days (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Diwali, Lunar New Year, Good Friday and Eid al-Fitr) (25-26, 26-27, and 27-28)
- Days off for 2 holidays when they fall on school days (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur) and Half Days for 5 holidays (Diwali, Lunar New Year, Good Friday and Eid al-Fitr)(25-26, 26-27, and 27-28)
- No religious holidays (25-26, 26-27, and 27-28)
A memo in the meeting packet listed pros and cons and other details for each option. (That included data that was summarized in a presentation table that I’m recapping in my own table right.)
In his presentation, Martineau acknowledged that the 4th option is imbalanced in favor of the majority, since their religions are baked into the regular school calendar. (Winter break is built around Christmas and Easter is on a Sunday.)
Some members indicated they would like to better understand what other holidays might be of concern in future years if the community continues to become more diverse, and what those impacts could be.
Kristen Williams Tietjen (of the Northborough committee) asked if they could look at what holidays other schools included that aren’t in the proposed versions. She also wondered if they could learn more about possible future requests by finding out if other holidays had been considered and rejected (and why those decisions were made). Bryce MacKnight (of the Northborough Committee) asked the Working Group to think about their recommendation in terms of their decision matrix and how it would apply to other religions that may be requested by the community in the future.
Southborough committee member Matthew Spencer said that if a half day option was presented, he would want to understand how the group was confident that it adequately meets the needs of that religious/cultural communities that observe those holidays. Multiple commenters made clear that they didn’t know enough about the four holidays that might be added to the calendar to opine on what is or isn’t appropriate for observation.
Regional member Paul Desmond said the Jewish community has repeatedly made its case for a day off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But as a Catholic, he’s never understood why there was a full day off for Good Friday. Desmond, who previously served on the Southborough committee and was on a prior calendar committee said his perspective has changed over the years. He stressed that making sure that all students and parents feel welcome and respected is much more important than worrying about adding a few days to the calendar.
ARHS Student representative Amelia Sinclair noted that there is a big push from the district and teachers about the importance of attending classes. She worried about students being at a disadvantage in missing important instructional time if they have to choose between religion and attending school.
In 2023, the District introduced “Wellness Days” that prohibited assigning tests or homework on religious/culturally significant holidays of Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Eid al-Fitr. Last March, the committee voted to make changes to the Wellness Day schedule, making them half days for students (followed by a half day of Professional Development for teachers).** The versions presented this month, including option 4, make no mention of Wellness Days.
At the time, Superintendent Gregory Martineau said he would ask the Calendar Advisory Group to evaluate 3-4 calendars to bring to the committee this year.
According to Martineau, the working group is a diverse group that comes out of the Coalition for Equity. The presentation listed 20 members, including members of school committees, school educators and administrators, parents, Algonquin students, and a local rabbi.
The group has worked to learn about the religious holidays and how they are observed. They have also looked at other school districts’ calendars. Martineau told the committees that those vary greatly in our area and across the state.
The group was tasked with looking at the calendars in terms of the district’s Core Values: Integrity, Equity, Empathy, Perseverance, Inclusivity, Respect. They also are looking at the calendar in terms of optimizing academic success, opportunities for Professional Development, and teachers’ concerns about continuity of learning losses when there are too many breaks.
Martineau presented a table that the group looked at to evaluate whether districts that added several holidays to their calendar saw a negative impact for learning. (See image right.) They concluded that it didn’t.
Lauren Balley-Jones, a Northborough School Committee member who also serves on the working group, said that she believed that most of their members were on the committee because they care about inclusion. While they have looked at the calendar through multiple lenses, the inclusivity seemed to be the strongest concern.
Bailey-Jones also observed that members didn’t feel good about making a judgement about whose religions deserve half days rather than full days. She said the group hadn’t voted yet. But she made clear that she believed they were leaning towards voting for Option 1.
She and Martineau highlighted that adding religious holidays would help in recruiting diverse teachers/staff, since it makes a statement about the district’s values.
Regional member John Wysocki asked if the consideration of the religions would be an annual task. That prompted some back and forth between members on what was/wasn’t appropriate in terms of making a long term decision. The overall sentiment seemed to be that changes should be considered when there a significant enough change to the school community to warrant it.
Southborough Vice Chair Roger Challen opined that it takes more than a year to know how well changes work. He suggested that anything they decide this spring should stick for at least a few years.
In 2023, the Coalition for Equity had recommended that the district eliminate the religious holidays in the 2025-26 calendar and instead adopt a policy to prohibit homework, tests, or quizzes on religious holidays. In the public comments last week, parents complained that there have been oversites by the district and community in respecting their religion that they worried would get worse. Past examples included the conflicting scheduling of Finn Fall Festival, sports competitions, and the timing of when parent-teacher conference signup became available.
One Jewish parent shared a different perspective. Southborough’s Emily Lowe told the committee that if teachers believe the continuity of education is harmed by having too many religious holidays the school should prioritize learning. If school takes place on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, she and her children will make the personal choice to observe the holidays.
Referring to the public comments, Challen told the public that a more impactful way of informing the committee is through emails in advance of the meeting. It gives members a chance to better reflect on them, reread them, and incorporate the thoughts into their comments and discussion. He assured the public that every member does read the emails.
For those interested in taking him up on that, the committees’ email addresses are NSC@nsboro.k12.ma.us, ssc@nsboro.k12.ma.us, and RSC@nsboro.k12.ma.us.
*If you’re marking your calendar, the next Combined School Committee meeting is scheduled for 5:30 pm on March 12th at Algonquin.
**Strangely, the ’24-’25 Wellness Days voted on last March didn’t actually include Eid al-Fitr which falls on Sunday, March 30th. But somehow the official calendar released in April was different than the one voted on. The April 17th Wellness Day was moved to the day after Eid al-Fitr, Monday, March 31st.
In 2023, the Coalition for Equity’s list of recommendations included observing the traditional school holidays for Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Good Friday through spring 2025, but:
Remove all religious observances from the school calendar in 2025-2026; once the District-wide no homework, tests, or quizzes days are institutionalized, the Religious Observance Policy will be strengthened, and education about the various religious observances and how they are observed will be strengthened.
