Next week, the School Committee will wrestle with an issue that evokes more passion than almost any other: the question of whether to open or close school on religious holidays. A decision on the issue would seem to be very difficult.
However, if the committee wants to treat everyone in Harvard equally, operate the schools more efficiently, follow the law, respect the separation of church and state, and make many parents’ lives easier, its decision should be easy.
Today, Harvard closes school on three religious holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Good Friday. This policy appears to satisfy very few citizens. If the School Committee wishes to accurately represent its constituents, it should simply open the schools on all three holidays.
close a school?
Schools need a secular reason to close for any purpose. In the case of religious holidays, the only widely accepted secular reason for closing on a religious holiday is the inability to operate a school efficiently and practically due to high absenteeism of students or teachers. I went to school in Newton where, on some Jewish holidays, Newton South High School closed. The student body was at least 90 percent Jewish and many of these kids had no intention of attending school on their holidays. It made sense—as a secular matter—to close school. Newton North High School, which had a much smaller population of Jewish students, stayed open. The city had no secular reason to close it.
Advocates of Harvard’s current policy claim that it is justifiable for quite a different secular reason: that closing school teaches the benefits of diversity and tolerance. If parents are relying on our schools to teach something so basic, they’re expecting too much from them. Furthermore, how much, exactly, does closing school teach? On Good Friday, are Jewish students really thinking about their Christian friends—much less studying their holiday—for hours and hours, and are Christian kids seriously pondering Judaism on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? If this is occurring, Harvard kids are quite different from kids everywhere else.
Moreover, the activity that does occur on religious holidays is religious, not secular. Were there no such holidays, school wouldn’t close in order to teach diversity and tolerance. The only reason Harvard closes its schools is to allow a small percentage of students to celebrate their religion.
Harvard’s review of its policy is timely. Towns across America have begun to reverse their earlier decisions to close school on religious holidays. There are three good reasons for Harvard to follow suit.
First, we will treat everyone equally. Today, only Christians and Jews are accommodated by the town’s policy. We know there are Muslims in town—some Muslim children took school off on high holidays in September—and there are probably citizens of other faiths. They’re left out of the current policy. Are we saying they’re not equal to Christians and Jews? Or just that there aren’t enough of them? Or they aren’t vocal enough on the subject to close school on their holidays?
On the other hand, if the School Committee were to expand its policy of religious holiday closing to include other religions, students could be attending school into July. Among Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, there are approximately 15 holidays of importance.
Nevertheless, it might seem that Harvard could treat everyone equally by expanding its religious holiday closing policy to include every religion that is celebrated by even one person. However, this equality would extend only to people who are religious. There are many agnostics and atheists in Harvard. By closing school only for people who want to celebrate their religion, are we saying that believers are more important than other citizens?
What if an agnostic student feels passionately about participating in an annual volunteer opportunity, on a school day, in the inner city? For that matter, what if 30 kids want to participate? Shouldn’t we close school for them, too? Is their passion, to help others, not as important as a child’s passion to observe his religion?
But if we accommodate all of these students, religious or not, where does it end? We shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to be inclusive.
The only solution is to open the schools. The key to making it work is to follow state law and “reasonably accommodate” kids who are absent on religious holidays. Harvard Teachers Association President Kathleen Doherty told the Calendar Subcommittee that not scheduling tests, important assignments, tryouts for drama productions, and other significant activities on religious holidays (and in some cases on the day after holidays) would work. After all, accommodation is made routinely now for students who are sick, visit colleges, attend funerals, and miss school for a host of other reasons.
By keeping our schools open on religious holidays we also honor one of America’s founding principles, the separation of church and state. As even a proponent of closing schools on some religious holidays has stated, “The objective of this civil right … has been repeatedly interpreted by the courts to make clear that it prohibits government entanglement in religious activity.” I heartily agree.
Many constitutional scholars have concluded that the intent of this right is that government will not discourage or foster the exercise of any one religion or religion in general. This doesn’t mean that religion cannot be discussed in school. For example, it’s reasonable (even valuable) to include a study of the world’s religions in school as an academic exercise. However, it’s unreasonable for a child to be told to sing religious music in school or for a town to close schools for religious holidays. In both of the latter cases, a town is fostering—becoming entangled with—religion.
There’s a third reason for keeping Harvard’s schools open on religious holidays: it’s inefficient and impractical to close schools simply because a small minority of parents want them to be closed.
Ask every Harvard parent of school-age children one question—Given a choice, are there any days that you would hold your children out of school that are not national holidays?—and I believe that a large majority will answer “none.” In the time that I served on the Calendar Subcommittee, I asked more than 25 parents this question. Most were religious, some devoutly so, and they were divided between Christians and Jews. They lived in Harvard and surrounding communities. None of them told me that they wanted to keep their children out of school on religious holidays. When asked if schools should be closed on such holidays, none said that they should.
No, my sample isn’t a perfect market study. If the School Committee doesn’t trust it, I urge the committee to poll Harvard’s parents.
This leads one to ask: How many absent students or teachers does it take to close a school? The superintendent should choose a number, and if he expects that number to be exceeded, he should close school. The decision is practical—and secular.
This method is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. Many school districts have adopted 20 to 22 percent as the number of students who are expected to be absent in order for school to close. All indications are that Harvard wouldn’t reach 20 percent, perhaps not even 10, on religious holidays.
The issue of a religious holiday policy has been contentious only because a very small number of citizens have been passionately vocal; almost all are advocates for the current policy. Of course, these citizens are not only welcome to voice their opinions, they should do so. However, the volume of the noise doesn’t reflect the tenor of the town. There is surely a silent majority that is unwilling to speak up for fear of seeming to be, at the least, politically incorrect, and at the worst, anti-something. I urge the School Committee to put the clamor it has heard in perspective. Town government cannot be a matter of the-squeaky-wheel-gets-the-decision.
Steve Kendall is a Harvard resident and a member of the Calendar Subcommittee.
