Education panel votes to add 2 Muslim holidays to school calendar

The beginning of the end?

clipped from www.silive.com Young Muslim women attend a meeting of Sisters Empowering Sisters on Staten Island in 2007. It's not easy having to choose between religion and education. Some would even say it's not fair. But for those people whose religious holidays aren't recognized by the public school system, that's the choice they have to make. Yesterday, the City Council's Education Committee advocated to eliminate that dilemma -- at least for Muslim families. The committee passed a resolution that would call upon the city Department of Education to incorporate two major Muslim holidays into the school calendar. The committee has also been pushing for the introduction of a state law that would require schools to close on those two days.