Cambridge public school officials said they approved the day off from school last year in an effort to make it easier for Muslim students to observe their highest holy days. Every year, city schools will close either for Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha, depending on which holiday falls within the school year. If both fall within the school calendar, the district will close for only one of those days.
Cambridge schools already close for some Christian and Jewish holidays, and School Superintendent Jeffrey Young said the district has a significant number of Muslim students.
“I think this shows that we live up to our values, and our values are of inclusion and of respect,’’ Young said.
State and federal law require schools to make reasonable accommodation for religious needs of students in observance of holy days, but the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education leaves decisions about how to do that up to individual school districts.
Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, said that to his knowledge, Cambridge is the first school system in Massachusetts to close schools for a Muslim holiday.
Elsewhere, school systems including those in Dearborn, Mich., and Burlington, Vt., already close for at least one Muslim holiday each year.
Marc McGovern, a member of the Cambridge School Committee who pushed for the Muslim holiday, speculated that one reason other school districts in the state have not approved a day off for Islamic holy days may be because their Muslim student populations are not big enough for the holiday to make sense.
McGovern said officials may also be reluctant to stir up the type of controversy Cambridge did when it approved the day off. Cambridge announced the move last year as the national discussion about Islam was being fueled by a controversial proposal to build a mosque two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City.
McGovern said he received criticism and a couple of threats last year after the School Committee approved the Muslim holiday.
