2021-2022 NYC CALENDAR RELEASED WITH CONTROVERSY OVER DELETION OF COLUMBUS DAY

The NYC Department of Education released the new school calendar today for the 2021-2022 school year. It looks like school will be starting almost a week later because Rosh Hashanah starts on the night of Labor Day so teachers need not report until Thursday, September 9, 2021, and school will not start for the kids until Monday, September 13. Snow days are now asynchronous learning days so forget about them.

This is not the controversial part. One million Italian-Americans in NYC were not consulted about the change from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day on the calendar. I am not going to go through the entire historical judgement on Columbus here. That is way beyond the scope of this posting. Let's just say if you judge him in the context of the 15th and 16th centuries, he comes out a bit better than if you use today's standards. (This may come as a shock to some of you, but I never taught from the perspective that just about everything the United States and Western culture have done has been for some nefarious purpose.) On the issue of the DOE calendar, the fact is many Italian Americans are not happy that Columbus Day was eliminated as a holiday. It is still recognized as a New York state official holiday.  

From ABC 7:

There are also two changes in the observed holidays this year. First, the non-attendance day on October 11, 2021, will be in observance of Indigenous Peoples' Day, with Columbus Day removed from the calendar.

That decision was quickly blasted by Republican lawmakers.

City Council members Joe Borelli and Steve Matteo and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis issued a joint statement demanding the Department of Education restore the name "Columbus Day" to the holiday, claiming it was removed without any public announcement or fanfare.

Further down:

In response, the DOE updated its calendar to celebrate October 11 as Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People's Day.

"Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People's Day will celebrate the contributions and legacies of Italian Americans and recognize that Native people are the first inhabitants of the land that became our country," the DOE said in a statement. "By including these holidays on our calendar we are honoring the past, present, and future contributions of Indigenous communities and Italian Americans."

Maybe that will be enough to appease show respect for my fellow Italian-American brothers and sisters.

Here is the calendar page from the DOE.

We'll have more information when we get it. Thanks to the people who sent the links. Note it is still Indigenous People's Day on this version. 

 

From Mulgrew Dear __________, I'm happy to report that the city Department of Education finally released the 2021-22 school calendar today. The holidays next school year make the calendar particularly challenging — especially with Labor Day falling immediately before Rosh Hashanah. But the final calendar still includes the minimum number of days to meet collective bargaining requirements and receive aid from New York State. Here are some of the highlights:

Labor Day falls on Monday, Sept. 6, and schools are closed for Rosh Hashanah on Tuesday, Sept. 7, and Wednesday, Sept. 8. As is customary, all school-based staff will report to work without students for two days, on Thursday and Friday. The first day of classes for students is Monday, Sept. 13. Schools will be closed on Yom Kippur on Thursday, Sept. 16. Schools will be closed on Veterans Day on Thursday, Nov. 11. Schools will be closed on Lunar New Year on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The mid-winter recess will be from Monday, Feb. 21 to Friday, Feb. 25. The spring break, which includes Good Friday and Passover, will be from Friday, April 15, to Friday, April 22. Schools will be closed on Eid al-Fitr on Monday, May 2. Schools will be closed for Juneteenth, a new public school holiday, on Monday, June 20. Parent-teacher conferences will take place only in early November and in March.

See the 2021-22 school year calendar for staff » This morning, we sent a text message linking to the family version of the 2021-22 school calendar. If you'd like to receive UFT text messages in the future, please use this online sign-up form. New York City schools must, by state law, have 180 “aidable" days. This year’s calendar is at that minimum because of the late start of classes and the number of school holidays. This situation has produced some unusual features in the 2021-22 school year calendar:

The last day for students will be Monday, June 27, but the last day of work for classroom teachers, attendance teachers, school nurses, therapists, lab specialists and paraprofessionals will be Tuesday, June 28, as contractually required. It will be a Chancellor’s Conference Day. June 30 is the last day for all other UFT school-based titles. Snow days, if we have any, will be remote instructional days. Otherwise, the DOE would have to convert another scheduled holiday to an instructional day to make up the day to meet the 180-day minimum. Election Day will be a professional development day. Students will have a remote learning day with no synchronous or live instruction. All schools will receive funding to pay per-session to teachers to plan that day’s asynchronous instruction.

I hope this information is helpful as you plan ahead. Thank you for everything you do.

Sincerely, Michael Mulgrew UFT President Staff version