Kids get new school holiday

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Public school students in New York City will have a new holiday next year: Lunar New Year. Starting in the 2015-2016 school year, the Department of Education (DOE) will officially observe the secular holiday that is celebrated across Asia. This coming year, schools will close on February 8, 2016.

According to The New York Times, some schools with large Asian populations see as many as 80 percent of their students absent on the holiday. The Asian communities in New York City have been lobbying to get the Lunar New Year named a holiday for years. 

“We pledged to families we would keep working until we made Lunar New Year an official school holiday, and today we are keeping that promise,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We are proud to be the largest school district in the nation to recognize the heritage of our Asian-American community by recognizing Lunar New Year. We thank the legislators and community advocates who worked so hard to make this possible.”

San Francisco was the first city to adopt Lunar New Year as an official school holiday. 

The announcement came less than two weeks after the New York State Senate unanimously passed a bill that made the Lunar New Year an official school holiday in any city of more than one million that also has an Asian population of at least 7.5 percent. New York City is the only city in the state that fits the criteria. 

A statement released by the DOE says that the school year will still have the appropriate amount of state-mandated instruction days. 

Earlier this spring, the DOE added two Muslim holidays to the school calendar as well, Eid al-Fitr (September 24th in 2015) and Eid al-Adha (which will take place over summer school in 2016). 

school, holiday, Lunar New Year, students, close, DOE, Isabel Angell

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