[cherry]

will someone tell this idiot that we do not celebrate any religous holidays at all.....we celebrate "winter holiday" ....

I expect people to sue the districts about this....

IF you can't even mention Christmas for the Christmas holidays, then I sure as hell don't think any other religous group should get special recongnition....

[HostileTerritory]

I grew up in New Jersey. In districts where any religious group is present in large numbers, you are going to have students from that group take off from school on the most important religious holidays. Making it a school holiday is a way of recognizing that a significant number of students are going to be absent and this distracts from the learning experience--better to make up the day elsewhere in the calendar.

It's a matter of practicality. My township changed from a 90% Caucasian Catholic farm-and-mill town to a much more populous suburb with a large Jewish minority. When the number of Jewish students reached a certain point, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah were added as school holidays because so many students were absent. This is likely what has happened in Irvington. If there were 10 Jewish students in my town or only 10 Muslim students in Irvington, no one would care when they missed a day.