Even as he was wrapping up his last meeting of an eight-year tenure, there was no go-along-to-get-along behavior from the Arlington School Board’s most individualistic member, Reid Goldstein.
Goldstein on Dec. 14 cast the lone dissenting vote on the school system’s 2024-25 and 2025-26 calendars, saying (as he has before) that they were too loaded up with religious or group-specific holidays.
“Everyone who wants to celebrate a holiday [by taking the day off] can do so without penalty, without closing the entire school system to do it,” Goldstein said during discussion of the item.
In addition to time off over Christmas and around Easter (known as “winter break” and “spring break” in school-system terminology), the 2024-25 calendar also includes days off for Rosh Hashanah (Oct. 3); Indigenous People’s Day (which remains recognized as Columbus Day by the state and federal governments, Oct. 11); Diwali (Nov. 1); and Eid al Fitr (March 31). The 2025-26 calendar keeps those holidays and adds Yom Kippur in October and Eid al Adha in May.
School jurisdictions across Northern Virginia have taken differing approaches to adding religious and group-specific holidays to the calendar, some following Arlington’s lead and others holding back. Either way, school districts in Virginia are required to provide at least 990 hours of instruction during a school year.
