Millions of Muslims across the world anticipate celebrating their two holidays, Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha, with their families and friends. Unfortunately, it is hard for Muslim students at PCTVS to celebrate their holidays when they are expected to be in school. The Muslim Student Association at Passaic County Technical Vocational School started this petition to give students a day off for Eid. 

For those of you who don’t know, Muslims celebrate two holidays, Eid Al Fitr, which comes after Ramadan, the month of fasting, and Eid Al Adha, the holiday of sacrifice. On the day of Eid, Muslims worldwide gather to pray their morning Eid prayer in congregation, celebrate with friends and family, and recognize their blessings. Eid Al Fitr occurs over three days, and Eid Al Adha occurs over four days, but what we are asking for is one day off for each Eid to celebrate our religious holiday. These two holidays are 70 days apart and do not fall on the same day every year because Muslims use the lunar calendar. Nonetheless, we can always predict the day of Eid before the school year starts to have an idea of when it will occur, and the exact date can be identified a month before. 

As Muslims living in America, we have the Freedom of Religion. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Constitution’s first amendment encourages and supports people’s freedom to establish religion or belief in teaching, practicing, and worshiping. We believe that all religions should be equally represented within the school district. Muslims and all other religious groups should have the right to celebrate their holiday without having to worry about being marked absent for not going to school that day or missing lessons, quizzes, tests, and projects. We have a heavy workload this year due to the pandemic, and it will be very stressful for many students to go back to school the next day with missing assignments and catch up on the lessons they missed because of a religious holiday. 

There is a large population of Muslim students in the PCTVS district, and they would like their religious holiday to be recognized and accounted for. Just like how we have off on Christmas and Good Friday, two Christian holidays, and Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday, we Muslims, would like to have off on our holidays too.

Furthermore, this year, it will be challenging to get a letter of excuse for Eid from our mosques because some of the mosques are not open. Most of the PCTVS student population is learning virtually, and it will be hard to send a letter of excuse to the school, even if we are provided with one. Most of our assignments are assigned in the morning, and due that night, so it will be difficult for the students who celebrate Eid to get all the work done while trying to celebrate their holiday. As of now, we have two snow days left and extra emergency days for this school year, and we are just asking to use one of them to take off for Eid. For those who do not celebrate Eid, this can be a mental health day, which we know many people need due to the circumstances we are currently in.

This petition aims to inform all readers why there shouldn’t be school on Eid in the PCTVS district. This is crucial because many Muslim students who are absent for their holiday come back to piles of work and lessons to teach themselves. This is very stressful for any student to endure and can easily be resolved. We hope that all the readers learned something new by reading this petition and can now understand where we are coming from. Please add your signature to support this cause and make sure to spread the word. Your help will truly be appreciated. On behalf of the Muslim Student Association at Passaic County Technical Vocational School, thank you for the time you spent reading this, and thank you for your support.