The Piedmont Highlander

The Student News Site of Piedmont High School

The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Religious and Cultural Holidays

Imagine having school on Christmas: Many students would have to choose between spending the day honoring family traditions and attending school so as to avoid getting behind — a trade-off that students belonging to minority religious and cultural groups know too well.

With the recent Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jewish students were forced to make this decision between academics and religious celebration. Because significant numbers of students experience this annual tension, it should be taken into account while the district finalizes the instructional calendar for next year.

Although many teachers do their best to accommodate the students who chose to stay home, the current policy regarding religious holidays is too loose. According to the student handbook, teachers are advised to not give tests, quizzes or review sessions on religious holidays. The existing policy discounts significant assignments like projects, graded class discussions, essays, debates, lengthy homework assignments and group work, all of which tend to be much harder to make up than a quiz.

Under the existing policies, students feel pressured to attend school, and teachers have no obligation to be flexible. Instead of mildly suggesting that teachers allow their students to observe their religious and cultural beliefs, the policy should clearly outline expectations that teachers plan around cultural holidays. It should also strongly encourage teachers to excuse students from any assignments that they miss, or at least be flexible in allowing students to make up the work, especially given that they have other classes they have to make up.

If Piedmont wants to enhance its diversity, we should make it easier for students to embrace their religions and cultures.

The San Francisco Unified School District does not have school on Lunar New Year, the most important holiday for many East Asian cultures. In Piedmont, this holiday is barely acknowledged, but we should make an effort to raise awareness of holidays that some people do not already celebrate. Although it is difficult to choose which holidays to acknowledge, Jewish holidays would be a good place to start because of Piedmont’s significant Jewish population.

We recognize that the logistics of scheduling around religious and cultural holidays is extremely challenging, especially since if the district chooses to hold finals before winter break, they would often be on Hanukkah.

Since the majority of these holidays occur in the fall and winter, taking school off for religious holidays would make it even harder to keep first semester as long as second, which is already a chief concern in the potential academic calendars for next year. Instead of basing the academic calendar around religious and cultural holidays, we should revise the existing holiday policy so as to lessen the workload during the holidays.

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