Two area residents asked Roslyn school Superintendent Allison Brown and the Board of Education last Thursday to officially recognize the Lunar New Year, just two weeks after different residents asked district officials to add the Muslim holidays of Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha as well as the Hindu holiday of Diwali.
“The schools should represent the demographics of the community and make sure its heritage is recognized,” said John Lee, who lives in East Hills and has two children in district schools.
Lee said he had “mixed feelings” about the request because he didn’t “want to open a Pandora’s box” of additional holiday requests.
“If we put all of the major religious holidays on the calendar, we won’t have any school,” he said.
“My preference is that the district doesn’t reduce the number of school days because I don’t want to hurt academics,” he added in an interview. “But we should recognize all students who are represented’’ in the schools.
The Lunar New Year, also known as the Chinese New Year, usually takes place on a date between late January and mid-February. This year it was on Feb. 8; next year it will take place on Jan. 28.
Zhanchong Li, who lives in Flower Hill and has a child at Harbor Hill School, said he, too, would like to see the Lunar New Year recognized but not if it comes at the expense of school days.
The state Education Department mandates that schools provide 180 days of instruction.
“We can’t lower the number of school days,” Joseph Dragone, the assistant superintendent for business and administration, said to Lee after his remarks.
Lee suggested the district either extend the length of the school year to accommodate days off for additional holidays, or rotate which additional holidays are observed from one year to the next.
“In odd years we could celebrate Jewish and Christian holidays, and in even years we could celebrate Muslim, Lunar and Hindu holidays,” he said.
Meryl Waxman Ben-Levy, president of the Roslyn Board of Education, said a yearly rotation of holidays “might not give us the consistency we need.”
She nevertheless said she was “sure there will be a nice way to thread the needle” though “it might not be calendar days off.”
The district cannot make a decision about the recognition of additional holidays until it receives an annual school calendar recommendation from the New York Board of Regents, a government body that supervises education throughout the state, she said.
A final decision will be made no later than February, she said.
