Push to close NYC schools for Muslim holidays.

Bottoms up!

From the Staten Island Advance:

Some City Council members are urging the state to add two Muslim holidays to the school calendar, calling it a matter of religious freedom and fairness. But their efforts appeared headed for failure, as long as Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in control of schools and the state legislature continues to stall a bill that would make the holy days official days off.

The debate on the issue continued at a packed meeting of the City Council's Committee on Education today, where several Muslim students testified about their desire to observe their religion without missing valuable classroom instruction.

Estimates of the number of Muslims in New York City range from 600,000 to 850,000. Their children comprise about 10-12 percent of the more than 1 million students in public schools. Though it is unclear how many live on Staten Island, the borough is home to eight mosques and a rapidly growing Muslim population, including tens of thousands of immigrants from Pakistan, Albania and Montenegro.

Current school policy permits students to take off religious holidays as an excused absence after submitting a written request signed by a parent. Public schools are closed on Christian holidays, including Christmas and Good Friday, and Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The Coalition for Muslim School Holidays is seeking to add two more days off: Eid Ul-Fitr, the final day of the month-long fast of Ramadan (which happens to be this Monday); and Eid Ul-Adha, which marks the culmination of the Hajj, or annual pilgrimage to Mecca (and will be observed on Dec. 8 this year).

Bloomberg has rebuffed the group's efforts on several occasions, saying that students cannot afford any more days off, and adding Muslim holidays could open up the doors for other religions to make the same requests.

Zahida Pirani, a project director for the New York Civic Participation Project, noting how several cities in New Jersey have already made Muslim holidays official days off from school, said the city could do so without hurting classroom instruction. She predicted it would happen if the mayor were not the sole regulator of school policy. "I believe New York City is organized around this in a very powerful way," Ms. Pirani said during the hearing. "If parents had a voice in this process, it would happen."

Slouching toward dhimmitude...