Members of Great Neck’s Asian-American communities on Monday called on the Great Neck Board of Education to consider adding the Lunar New Year as a recognized holiday for students to have off from school.
Mimi Hu, communications committee chair for the Great Neck Chinese Association, and Father Joseph Pae, representing the Great Neck Korean Civic Association, said the Lunar New Year, the first day of the new year in the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, is the most important holiday for their communities.
“Lunar New Year is the singular most important holiday celebrated in many Asian-American communities here in Great Neck. Many Asian-American students will celebrate their cultural heritage and tradition with their families on this holiday,” Hu said. “Just as students of other ethnicities in Great Neck will enjoy their holidays off, Asian-American students and their families should be affordedthe same.”
Various other school districts in the country have begun recognizing the Lunar New Year as a holiday including the New York City and San Francisco school districts.
Hu said this past weekend, members of the Great Neck Chinese Association walked door-to-door asking residents if they wanted the Lunar New Year to be an official school holiday.
She added of the 522 signatures gained, 519 of them answered “yes” while only 3 answered “no.”
“These numbers are significant and they are hard to ignore,” Hu said.
She noted the prominence of Asian-American students in Great Neck schools, pointing out that 33 percent of students districtwide are Asian-American and more than 50 percent of the students in Great Neck South High School and Middle School are Asian-American.
Pae, reverend canon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Great Neck, said recognizing the holiday would allow other students to become familiar with a culture they may not know about.
“I really believe that sharing those experiences of something different but also something other people enjoy, you get to have a mutual understanding and greater respect for one another,” he said.
School board Vice Oresident Larry Gross agreed with Pae, saying it is important for children to learn from various different cultures.
“We do understand the need and importance and we will follow up on that,” Gross said.
While many might be in favor of giving students off for the holiday, Superintendent Teresa Prendergast said, scheduling the school calendar to include the Lunar New Year can be difficult.
“That being said, we are going to take a look at that calendar in recognizing how we can best address the changing needs of the community with regards to supporting, perhaps, the consideration of looking at Lunar New Year on the calendar,” Prendergast said. “But I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that each school year does bring its set of challenges depending on when Labor Day falls on the calendar. Also depending on when New York State schedules the Regents exam week for high school students.”
“It’s a little bit more complicated than one would predict but that being the case, we are going to take a look at this for calendar proposals going forward,” she added.
At the meeting, the board unanimously approved a proposed calendar for the 2016-17 school year, which did not include the Lunar New Year as a holiday.
