After three Brookline School Committee (BSC) meetings, Eid al-Fitr (Eid) was officially voted a Category I Holiday for the 2025-26 school year, giving students the day off. For years, the holiday, along with its sister, Eid al-adha, were considered Category II Holidays, meaning that students could not receive any homework the night of.

The idea of upgrading Eid to Category I was first discussed at a summer workshop in town hall. In November, a meeting was held where committee members voted on whether certain calendar options should exist. On January 9, the BSC held their second meeting where they officially switched it to Category I. Eid al-Adha kept its status as a Category II holiday.

As speculation of elevating Eid to a Category I Holiday arose, the Brookline Muslim Friends (BMF), a Muslim-run organization that advocates for change in the community, took action. At the first BSC meeting, members of the BMF and Muslims around Brookline gave a series of testimonies to persuade the BSC to vote in their favor. At that meeting, the BSC voted on four options, and ended up adding Eid to the calendar with no other changes.

Four calendar options officially emerged from the first meeting: The first option would maintain the current calendar with no adjustments; the second option, which ultimately won, involved adding Eid with no other changes; the third option suggested having a professional development day on Eid, which gave students the day off from school, but not teachers; and the final option would be removing Category I holidays altogether.

Eid, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan and a 30-day fast for Muslims, is widely celebrated across the world and in Muslim people in Brookline. Hajar Delshad, a mother to two Muslim children attending Brookline Public Schools and one of the individuals who spoke at the BSC meeting in November, emphasized the significance of the holiday within the Muslim community.

“It is such a major milestone in a Muslim’s life to complete 30 days of fasting and then be able to celebrate. It’s just really fun, very joyous,” Adalshad said. “It would be somewhat unthinkable for someone to not have Easter Sunday or Christmas off, and that’s what we are asked to do year in and year out.”

Delshad said that Brookline’s growing Muslim population was another reason why Eid should be recognized, and that many felt their concerns were not being addressed by the people in charge.

“The Brookline School District is really focused on equity and inclusion. And for a subset of the population, we don’t feel included and we don’t feel like the holidays are equitable,” Adalshad said.

Junior and leader of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) Sophia Ismail described the challenges of having to choose between her religious commitments and academic ones, a narrative she said is familiar for Muslim students in Brookline.

“Missing school is a major inconvenience,” Ismail said. “Especially in high school when the workload is much harder. Even missing one day [for Eid] set me back since everyone else was still doing classwork.”

Ismail said there is a lack of recognition for Muslims at the high school and in the broader Brookline community. She said that not only is there inadequate recognition of holidays, but there is also insufficient education surrounding Muslim culture and traditions.

“It would be nice to have more representation,” Ismail said. “A lot of people have no clue that Ramadan is happening.”

Steven Ehrenberg, a member of the BSC, who, despite being torn between options two and four, voted yes on option two. Those who voted no, according to Ehrenberg, cited several reasons: lack of childcare, religious bias and how recognizing Eid could lead to the addition of more holidays, extending the calendar further into summer. But the most popular counter argument, he said, was that holidays are labeled Category I because of low attendance on those days and Eid did not have low enough attendance to meet the threshold.

“There’s been this fiction that we’ve been taking off Good Friday and Roshashanah and Yom Kippur because those are days of low attendance, but there’s just no evidence that [that is true],” Ehrenberg said.

The BSC voted in favor of option two, with seven votes for and two against. Delshad said that this is a step to how the Brookline community can continue to strive for a more diverse school environment where everyone feels accepted and seen.

“Schools are the best place to do that because they’re naturally places of education,” Adalshad said. “So, the more people that learn about each other’s cultures and heritage and practices, the more they can see how much overlap there is and how we are all coming from one kind of human family.”