As a South Brunswick resident and with two children in its school system, I felt I must respond to Matt Verney’s assertion in his letter to the editor that no Christian holidays shut down the public schools here.
First off, Mr. Verney claims that Christmas just happens to fall during winter break. Does Mr. Verney not know that our entire winter break is designed around Christmas? It starts the day before with Christmas Eve — notice we don’t get a straight Monday until Friday for “winter break” — and ends the day after New Year’s. (When I was growing up, we called it what it actually was: Christmas break.) Despite the fact that we live in a country free of ties to religion, Christmas is a national holiday and everything, other than movies and a few select restaurants, is shut down. That includes schools.
Mr. Verney is correct that Easter is on a Sunday. But he seems to forget that nearly every year our students get the week of Easter off — which includes Good Friday — and that it is called “spring break.” (When I was growing up, it was referred to as Easter break.) In addition, the day after Easter is slated as a day off school, too, and though not an official national holiday, it is often referred to by the many people who celebrate Easter as “Easter Monday.”
As a Jew, I will be the first to admit that the issue of which holidays to give off and not give off, for which religious groups, is a mighty difficult task, one I’m glad does not fall on my shoulders. And I do see the problems with giving off some minorities’ holidays but not others. Let’s just be sure to remember that the majority does get its holidays off, and not because they “happen” to fall anywhere, but by design. School calendars are built around these holidays.
Judy Walters
Kendall Park