02-04-2025
Portland considers adding Yom Kippur, Eid al-Fitr to school calendar
Apr. 2—Portland students and staff could have two new days off from school next year: the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur in October and the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr in March.
The Portland school board has been workshopping an updated 2025-26 school calendar over the past two weeks. Adding the two holidays would be an acknowledgement of the district's growing religious diversity, according to district leadership, but will also cost $65,000 per day. The board will take a final vote on the calendar Tuesday.
"The point of this is to recognize the rich diversity of our community, and to have our calendar reflect that there is significant religious diversity withing our school system and our larger community," said Sarah Warren, executive director of strategy, at last week's Curriculum and Policy Committee meeting. She said the push for the added holidays originally came from students.
The proposed calendar also includes tweaks to the winter break schedule and professional development days for teachers. Because Eid al-Fitr could take place on either March 19 or 20 next year, Portland will pair the holiday with a professional development day, and whichever date is determined not to be Eid will still be a day off from school, allowing families to plan in advance.
Maine law requires districts to have at least 175 instructional days for students and at least 180 school-functioning days for teachers. Each additional holiday would cost the district $65,000 because they would add a paid holiday for hourly staff like ed techs. Warren said the district would plan to find money in the operating budget for those costs, rather than proposing new expenses.
Warren said the district also considered adding other holidays — including Lunar New Year, a nonreligious holiday celebrated in China and other Asian countries, and Good Friday, part of the Christian Holy Week — but isn't suggesting those additions at this point.
"We just decided to start with these two and see where that takes us," Warren said. "This was an effort to try and at least build some diversity into the calendar in recognition of different religions' holidays, but doesn't clearly get all of it."
All of the holidays observed in Portland school calendar currently are either federal, state or related to the Christian faith.
Portland Public Schools doesn't know how many of its students are Muslim or Jewish, because it doesn't keep data on religious affiliations. But Census data shows the population of Muslims in the Portland area is growing.
About 3.67% of people in Cumberland County are Muslim, according to the 2020 U.S. Religion Census. The Portland-South Portland metropolitan area is the 23rd-largest metro area of Muslims in the country as of 2020, with a 2.02% Muslim population — a massive rise from 311th in 2010.
About 0.62% of people in Cumberland County, and around 0.37% of people in the greater Portland-South Portland metro area, are Jewish according to the 2020 religion census.
Lewiston Public Schools added two Muslim holidays, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, to its school calendar in 2021 and was the first district in the state to do so. Lewiston's superintendent said at the time that more than 40% of the district's students and staff recognize and observe the holidays.
Portland school board District 2 Board Member Ali Ali observed the growing number of Muslims on local government bodies and in the area.
"Having to miss school on those specific days and then having to re-make it was really ... it was a lot," Ali said, although he said he also understood the financial drawbacks.
The $130,000 price tag for the new calendar did receive concern from some committee members, although an amendment to convert the holidays to half-days did not receive support to move forward. Another amendment to add Good Friday also did not progress.
There was little discussion about the calendar when the school board workshopped it Tuesday night. Board Chair Sarah Lentz said she was excited to support the added holidays.
"I think that there's still a disconnect between the ways that we schedule things in schools and the major holidays that our students are celebrating. And so I think that this operationalizes us to think about Ramadan and to think about the High Holidays in the Jewish religion in a different way, that our previous calendar has done around major Christian holidays," she said.
A couple of public commenters, like Lara Rosen, spoke about their support for the changes, and described them as a step toward equity.
"As somebody who grew up Jewish in a very non-Jewish community, that was not something that I ever experienced," Rosen said. "And I would love for my kiddo, and his Muslim friends, and his Jewish friends, to also be able to have those holidays recognized and have that cultural history and religious experience recognized by the district."
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