I agree with the letter submitted by Jaime Bedrin published on 3/31/2025. We do need to finalize the 2025-26 calendar. We don’t need to end school on June 30th. It is too hot to be in old buildings with inadequate A/C and children and teachers do need a break. I, along with a significant number of people, are not in agreement to “reduce religious holidays.”
Reduction of religious holidays means someone is making the decision to arbitrarily and subjectively choose which holidays to reduce (e.g. Eidul Fitr, Diwali and Lunar New Year and the second day of Rosh Hashana) while Christmas, Yom Kippur and first day of Rosh Hashana remain.
If religious holidays are going to be part of the solution then we should eliminate all religious holidays or leave all of them. Not target Islamic and Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Including but not limited to Chinese and Indian. A superior method would be to get the elections out of Board of Education buildings and shift to municipal sites. I’m sure the relevant town, county and/or state officials can make this happen and help us avoid the above mentioned negative consequences for the teaching staff and children.
Kevin Dawud Amin
Montclair
Montclair Local’s Opinion section is an open forum for civil discussion in which we invite readers to discuss town matters, articles published in Montclair, or previously published letters. Views expressed and published in this section are solely those of the writers and do not represent the views of Montclair Local.
I guess the Local really likes this guy – two Op Eds in three days.