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| Broward schools being asked to close on 2 Muslim holidays |
| 2012-11-01 |
| Broward County public schools are being asked to close for two Islamic holidays a year under a controversial proposal before the district's Diversity Committee. The request, from the Florida chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, would make Broward the first in Florida and one of only a few districts in the country to add Moslem holidays into its calendar. Broward and Palm Beach County schools generally close on major Christian and Jewish holidays. The Islamic holidays requested, which fall on different days depending on the year, are Eid al-Fitr -- the end of Ramadan -- and Eid-al Adha, which marks the end of Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. "This is about inclusive diversity, and the Moslem community has too long been excluded," said Roland Foulkes, chairman of the Diversity Committee, which will debate the proposal Thursday night. "This is long overdue, and we need to move beyond the lip service of diversity in the community and reflect the full diversity of everyone." |
| Posted by:Au Auric |
| #10 It's the very worst mixture of, yankee wankers, Cracker thieves, sorry no accounts fleeing from Jacksonville and assorted Cubans running from Miami. And that's just the good parts. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2012-11-01 23:24 |
| #9 Classroom aide in Broward makes 30K+ to start for 10 months of baby sitting with the teacher. The most unionized and heavily democratic county in Florida. It's the very worst mixture of, yankee wankers, Cracker thieves, sorry no accounts fleeing from Jacksonville and assorted Cubans running from Miami. A decidedly screwed up place, Obo will carry +9 |
| Posted by: Shipman 2012-11-01 16:45 |
| #8 They don't close on Good Friday. Nor on any other 'religious' holidays. (Remember Dec 24 & 25th are called 'Winter Festival' or 'Winter Holidays' - nonreligious). |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2012-11-01 13:52 |
| #7 TW: I'm sure that's baked into the plan.... |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2012-11-01 13:27 |
| #6 The public school I attended was 10% Jewish, but did not close for Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur. We just missed class, making up the work afterward. Closing school for certain religious holidays is not an issue of fairmess, but of practicality; if half or more of your students will be out of school, it's a tad hard to ensure instruction occurs. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2012-11-01 13:23 |
| #5 When they start talking about things like "diversity committees" it scares the bejeebers outta me. It's just a euphemism for "stick it to the white boy". They have money for Deans of Diversity at California universities and yet they want to raise taxes so they can have more money for education. Cut the Deans of Diversity and then maybe we'll talk. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-11-01 12:30 |
| #4 Why are they in the infidel schools anyway? There's wimminfolks running around in them, tempting the faithful. Madrassas, that's the way! |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2012-11-01 09:38 |
| #3 Just make them an authorized excused absence for the day. Them being religious holidays that effect less than 33 percent of the student population. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-11-01 09:34 |
| #2 Home schooling? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-11-01 09:09 |
| #1 Estimates are that there are about 0.8% of the U.S. population that are Muslim or about 7M. Surveys such as Pew provide such survey estimates. CAIR's estimates for Broward Co. seem inflated. Religious affiliation is not collected by the census. Better yet, how about Broward Co. focusing on education and teaching people to assimilate into an American culture? I can see where just about every group in the US will be appealing for a holiday based on their religion or culture to the extent that there will be few days available for teaching and education. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-11-01 09:08 |