Prince William County school officials added Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim holidays to a tentative 2021-2022 calendar for the Virginia school system, and are asking parents to weigh in.
The proposed calendar would include the following:
- Jewish new year of Rosh Hashanah;
- Jewish day of atonement Yom Kippur;
- Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights;
- Eid al-Fitr, which marks breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan.
The school system is asking parents to take part in a poll that ends Thursday, to provide input on calendar Option B, which “incorporates additional holidays that reflect the diversity of the PWCS community.”
Virginia requires the school year must begin with at least 180 school days.
To reach 180 days while adding four additional days off, the school system would remove three days from winter break and one day from spring break from the originally approved calendar.
With both options, the school year would begin Aug. 23, 2021, and end June 10, 2022.
After receiving input from the poll, the school board will discuss and approve a 2021-22 calendar later this month.
In the 2020-21 calendar, holidays include Labor Day, Election Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving break, winter break, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidential Inauguration Day, Washington’s Birthday/President’s Day and Memorial Day.
