Holiday or not, schools gird for absences

Good Friday's varying status spurs debate

WINCHESTER - For as long as anyone here can remember, Good Friday, the most solemn of Christian holy days, has been a holiday for public school students, a day set aside for prayer and quiet reflection.

But not today, not in Winchester.

In the quest to create an academic calendar that played no favorites to any one religion, the Winchester School Committee scrapped the Good Friday holiday last year, rendering today, just another day on the academic schedule.

Winchester joined a growing list of public schools from Florida to Tennessee that are choosing to hold school on Good Friday, rather than bowing to pressure from other religious groups to grant holidays like Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, or Muslim holidays like Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan. In the end, some officials say, having no religious holidays - aside from Christmas, which falls conveniently during winter break - is better than having too many.

"Flip this around, and let's say we make Good Friday a holiday," said Samuel Kounaves, a former School Committee member in Winchester who voted last year to make Good Friday a school day. "Well, then you're going to have to allow all these other holidays and get involved in a long list of holidays."

But, as Winchester residents are learning, eliminating Good Friday as a school vacation day might solve one problem while creating others. In addition to students calling in for excused absences, roughly half of the teachers are expected to be missing in some schools today, administrators said. With not nearly enough substitute teachers to replace them, parent volunteers will staff some classes today. And, practical concerns aside, some local Christians are upset about the schools being open today and never intended to send their children to class on this day of all days.

"Absolutely not," said Denise George, a mother of two. "Good Friday was always a school holiday, and we're Catholic, so we will observe that day."

Good Friday, the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus, is neither a national holiday, nor a holiday in Massachusetts. State offices are open today, as are town offices in Winchester. But it has been a holiday for years in public schools in most communities, including Boston, as well as Medford, Woburn, and Stoneham, which are Winchester's closest neighbors.

In recent years, as communities have grown more diverse and as religious groups have lobbied schools to recognize various holidays, administrators have started reexamining their calendars.

In some cases, as in Lexington and Acton, schools have mitigated potential problems by offering vacation days for both Good Friday and Jewish holy days. But others, including Wilmington public schools, just 9 miles north of Winchester, have tried having no religious holidays at all, aside from Christmas.

The idea is to find a way to treat people of all religions equitably, said Joanne Benton, superintendent of schools in Wilmington.

But with so many teachers and students absent on Good Friday in 2004 and 2005, the experiment did not last. By the 2005-06 school year, Good Friday was back on the list of school vacation days in Wilmington, listed as a "no school day," Benton said. Not technically a holiday, but a day off nonetheless.

"The lesson learned is, in the end, to have a productive day in school you really need teacher and students in class," Benton said. "We tried it. But two years in a row, the attendance rate was so low that you couldn't have a productive day."

Now Bill McAlduff, superintendent of schools in Winchester, is preparing for the same problem today. As a new hire last fall - from Wilmington, of all places - McAlduff inherited the district's Good Friday policy and said the schools will do their best to educate students today.

The number of absentees, - which is expected to be "substantial," McAlduff said - will be presented to the School Committee, along with data about attendance on other religious holidays this year. The School Committee, which voted 3 to 2 in favor of the change last year, will review this information and decide how to proceed next year.

Marie Rose Muir, for one, believes the School Committee will reverse itself, once it sees how many people do not show up today. As a junior at Winchester High School, Muir is taking the day off because she is Catholic and plans to go to church.

But even if she wasn't Catholic, Muir, 17, probably would not have attended school today. She figured it would be pointless: Almost all of her teachers are out today.

"Every single one," she said, "except my physics teacher."

Winchester parent Ann Hibbard said that doesn't sound like much of an academic setting. But she is sending her three children to school today, anyway. As she sees it, a school day is a school day. Her children need to understand that, Hibbard said, and other parents have found different ways to come to peace with the policy.

Mary Beth Cassidy, a Catholic and mother of two, said she struggled with the change, but ultimately decided that the discussion has been good for her family. Talking about Good Friday, she said, has made her children think more about its meaning.

And so her boys, ages 14 and 11, will attend school, but not for the whole day, she said. No matter what the schools decide, she said, there is still church to attend.

"We can do that after school," Cassidy said. "But it's not an ordinary day. And I don't want my children going to school all day thinking it's an ordinary day."

Keith O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@globe.com.