BROOKLINE, Mass. — Brookline Superintendent Bella Wong on Thursday recommended keeping the district's religious and cultural holiday closures on the 2027-28 school calendar, setting up a debate in which School Committee members, parents and students split over whether schools should close only on state and federal holidays.

The district currently closes for five holidays beyond state and federal ones: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Eid al-Fitr, Lunar New Year and Good Friday, according to Wong's presentation. She offered calendar versions with and without those closures, each with a pre- or post-Labor Day start, and recommended keeping all the holidays with a pre-Labor Day start.

The committee did not vote Thursday. Wong said policy requires a vote by the end of February, and the calendar cannot be finalized until early release days are settled with the teachers union.

Survey results

Wong said 29% of families and 43% of staff responded to a district survey. Among responding families, 62% said that, considering their own household, they preferred closing on state and federal holidays only. When asked to consider the broader community, she said, that share fell to 56%, with 44% favoring the current calendar.

"When we think about belonging and being inclusive, sometimes it may mean we inconvenience ourselves to be able to do that," Wong said.

She said staff responses indicated significant absences on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Good Friday if school were open, and that "it may not be possible to operate school safely on those days." She also said dropping the holidays would end the year earlier, with the first possible last day falling on June 12, 13 or 14 in seven of the next 10 years, which some parents said would create its own child care problems.

Committee divided

One committee member said she still favors closing only on state and federal holidays "because it's just clean, compact," and said it is "the only way to be fully inclusive and fully non-discriminatory." She said, "In fact, having holidays is discriminatory."

Another member asked what metric the district uses to choose which holidays close schools. "If we say these ones are okay, but not y'all, aren't we inherently being discriminatory if there's no metric?" she said.

A third member said, "This isn't just about metrics and numbers and percents," and said she is "leaning now towards really supporting the superintendent and her recommendation."

Public comment

A Brookline High School junior told the committee she had advocated as a freshman for the district's first Eid al-Fitr closure. "If we were to lose this day, it would not just mean Muslims losing their holiday," she said. "It would mean students having to choose between their faith and their education."

"I don't want to have to make a decision between my religion and my assignments," she said.

The chair of the Brookline Asian American Family Network said Lunar New Year is "incredibly important to our community" and that the effort to add it "was actually driven by the students over a number of years." She said there were no complaints about holidays "until lunar new year, and most important, significantly until Eid Al-Fitter was added."

The co-chair of the district's Special Education Parent Advisory Council urged the committee to limit closures to federally recognized holidays and reduce early dismissals, saying each closure can "impose a significant burden, particularly on single parents, economically disadvantaged households, and families of students receiving special education services."

A father who said he represents a practicing Jewish household asked the committee to make all religious holidays days when school is open but no homework, tests or quizzes are assigned. "This would allow equity inclusion of all religions and not have to hand pick which holidays get the days off and which do not," he said.

A sixth grade teacher who said he does not observe any of the five holidays defended them, noting that "not a single religious holiday falls in November," a month some parents criticized for having few full school days.