Beverly School Committee Debates Days Off For Good Friday, Yom Kippur
Good Friday #GoodFriday
BEVERLY, MA — Beverly students will have no school on Yom Kippur and Good Friday next year but may not have those days off down the line as School Committee members debated whether it is equitable to all students to give certain religious holidays preference over others.
A motion to eliminate those holidays as days off in the 2023-24 school calendar was withdrawn Wednesday night after it was determined that the contracts of some school staff — including cafeteria workers — already include them as holidays that have to be honored, but that could change with some of those contracts expiring.
Unlike Christmas Day, which has been a federal holiday since 1885, Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are not government holidays. Rosh Hashanah falls on a weekend during the upcoming school year.
“This should be a conversation,” said School Committee member Lorinda Visnick, “especially as we continue to invest in our (diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging) efforts. There absolutely should be a separation of church and state.
“Although we have no control over the federal government and whether they choose to recognize Christmas or not we can control what we can control and I think it sends a big message when we’re recognizing some (religious holidays) and not all. And I think it is truly unrealistic for us to recognize all.”
Visnick said, as a family of the Jewish faith, she could take her students out of school for those holidays if she chose to do so, but that “I don’t think an entire district should recognize a specific religion’s holiday.”
Beverly Superintendent Sue Charochak said she included those holidays in next year’s calendar proposal, essentially, because that’s the way it’s always been done.
“In Beverly, Yom Kippur and Good Friday have been traditionally observed for a long time,” she said. “I had never been asked to alter that in any way. In Beverly, we have had a lot of conversations about … how to make sure we are accommodating students of the Jewish faith if they are missing (additional) school, because this is not the only Jewish holiday that happens on a school day so there are other Jewish holidays we don’t observe as non-school days.
“I will honestly say I rolled the calendar because I did not see a discussion coming on these holidays because they have been here for so long.”
She said there has been some School Committee discussion about the Good Friday holiday in the past.
“There was a lot of concern a couple of years ago, I believe, about the Good Friday walk, which a number of our high school students and middle school students participate in,” Charochak said. “So that’s sort of in the back of my head. I wouldn’t call it an untouchable, but something that would cause a lot of discussion among the community.”
Salem Superintendent Steve Zrike also proposed a discussion on the possibility of eliminating Good Friday as a school holiday in future years in that district as well, though it was not proposed for Salem’s adopted calendar for 2023-24.
The Beverly school calendar that passed on Wednesday includes school starting on Aug. 30 for grades 1 through 9, Aug. 31 for grades 10 through 12, followed by a four-day Labor Day break, then resuming on Sept. 5 for grades 1 through 12 and starting Sept. 6 for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.
Friday, Dec. 22 is a day off before the holiday break and both primary election day and general election day are off because of voting that takes place in schools. The final day of school would be June 18 with no snow days and June 26 with five snow days, inclusive of a day off for the Juneteenth federal holiday on June 19.
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
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