Dearborn Public School Schedule

The Dearborn Public School System announced its 2009 -2010 schedule last week. Ramadan is set to close on September 21 & 22 with the El al-Fitr Feast, Christmas break starts December 18th, mid winter break is in the middle of February and spring recess is from April 2 thru April 11th. Once upon a time spring recess was known by it proper name of Easter and it was celebrated on Easter, always and forever. Recently public school officials have divorced the break from Easter with some pabulum about the difficulty of planning around a holiday that moves a week at a time within a 4-5 week period. Not sure what the difficulty is as the Church has determined when Easter will be celebrated for the next couple of decades! El al-Fitr on the other hand falls on sunset after sighting the Shawwal moon in Saudi Arabia the birthplace of Islam. This spectacularly imprecise method has resulted in our Dearborn School District awaiting word from local imams for the official start of the holiday. They wait patiently, no doubt wanting to avoid offense and it probably does not occur to them the silliness of their Easter deliberations because their Christianity is something kept tightly under lock and key. I will go out on a limb and predict that the local school signage will announce the school’s holiday for Ramadan by name and will avoid the use of Christmas with some formulation like Holiday Break. I will keep you posted.