New York public schools add an Islamic holiday to the 2025-2026 academic calendar.
The The New York State Department of Education has, for the first time, declared the Feast of Sacrifice a public holiday in all the state's public schools.
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Until now, in New York City some Islamic holidays, such as the Feast of Sacrifice or the breaking of Ramadan, have already They had been recognised as non-teaching days since 2015., but only at the municipal level. This meant that All Muslim students had the day off in the city's state schools. but the staff were carrying out administrative or training tasks. In the rest of the state, many students could only be excused with a note, and classes continued as normal. The Official calendar for the 2025-2026 academic year resolves the situation by creating the holiday for the Feast of Sacrifice ( Feast of Sacrifice) for everyone throughout the state.
With the approval of the official 2025-2026 school calendar, The New York State Department of Education has decided to extend this recognition and uniformly include an Islamic holiday in all public schools in the state.. The measure comes after several legislative initiatives in the Senate and the state Assembly (such as the Senate Bill S4670 and the’Assembly Bill A2598A), who sought to formalise new religious and cultural celebrations beyond the traditional ones.
Other new holidays in the calendar
The new 2025–2026 calendar not only includes the Feast of Sacrifice (or of the Lamb). The following have also been added:
- Diwali (20 October 2025)The festival of light, celebrated by Hindu, Sikh and Jain communities.
- Asian Lunar New Year (17 February 2026)Central commemoration for Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese communities.
These days are added to the already traditional ones such as Christmas, Thanksgiving or Yom Kippur, and Increase the number of non-teaching days in the official calendar.. The Department of Education argues that the inclusion of Diwali, the Lunar New Year or Eid al-Adha reflects the multicultural reality of New York. Critics warn that, with a 40% of the city's population born abroad or the children of immigrants., The school calendar risks becoming filled with private holidays to the detriment of educational continuity.
Those who disagree warn that the increase in bank holidays can have practical consequences that often take a back seat. Each day off school reduces the available teaching hours and forces academic content to be cut or compressed. Moreover, The number of days off makes it difficult for many families to balance work and home life., especially those who do not have additional holiday entitlement at their workplaces. Analyst Alina Adams proposed to The 74 a fairer alternative: To offer personal days to each pupil so that each family can decide according to their own tradition., rather than imposing celebrations that do not affect everyone.
The mess of last season in New York City
For the 2024–2025 academic year, the city's education department designated Thursday 5 June 2025 as a non-teaching day. The problem was that the holiday was actually on Friday 6 June. The error caused schools to close a day early and, in the face of criticism, a remote administrative day was hastily declared the next day.
Instead of a single public holiday, the school system was disrupted for two consecutive days. Families and teachers denounced the improvisation and lack of rigour of a Department that, in theory, should have planned such a sensitive timetable in good time.
What is the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha)?
The’Feast of Sacrifice, known as the Festival of Sacrifice, is one of the most important commemorations in the Islamic calendar. It recalls the biblical and Qur'anic episode in which the Prophet Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son in obedience to God, until he was replaced by a ram. The celebration coincides with the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and includes communal prayers, family meals and, in many cases, the ritual sacrifice of animals.
This year, the The New York State Department of Education has decided to include Eid al-Adha as an official public holiday in all the state's public schools for the first time., and not only in New York City. For the authorities, it is a gesture of inclusion and pluralism. This measure comes just a few months after the City Council of New York would allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer over loudspeakers without needing to ask for permission.. For critics, these decisions show how public institutions yield to community pressures and end up transforming the common space into a mosaic of private concessions.
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