Establishes Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as school holidays, with dates established by religious law and tradition; allows for school districts and municipalities with a population of less than fifty thousand to opt into the recognition of such holidays.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
7805
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
May 9, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. FERNANDEZ -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Judiciary
AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to establishing Eid
al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as school holidays
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 8 of section 3604 of the education law, as
2 amended by chapter 359 of the laws of 2023, is amended to read as
3 follows:
4 8. No school shall be in session on a Saturday, the first day of the
5 second lunar month after the winter solstice in the preceding calendar
6 year known as Asian Lunar New Year, or a legal holiday, except general
7 election day, Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday, and except
8 that driver education classes may be conducted on a Saturday. For muni-
9 cipalities and school districts with a population of fifty thousand or
10 more, the foregoing shall also apply to the holidays of Eid al-Fitr and
11 Eid al-Adha, as affixed by Muslim religious law and tradition. For muni-
12 cipalities and school districts with a population of less than fifty
13 thousand, the foregoing may apply if such municipality or school
14 district opts into the recognition of the holidays of Eid al-Fitr and
15 Eid al-Adha. A deficiency not exceeding four days during any school year
16 caused by teachers' attendance upon conferences held by superintendents
17 of schools of city school districts or other school districts employing
18 superintendents of schools shall be excused by the commissioner,
19 notwithstanding any provision of law, rule or regulation to the contra-
20 ry, a school district may elect to schedule such conference days in the
21 last two weeks of August, subject to collective bargaining requirements
22 pursuant to article fourteen of the civil service law, and such days
23 shall be counted towards the required one hundred eighty days of
24 session, provided however, that such scheduling shall not alter the
25 obligation of the school district to provide transportation to students
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04284-03-5
S. 7805 2
1 in non-public elementary and secondary schools or charter schools. At
2 least two such conference days during such school year shall be dedi-
3 cated to staff attendance upon conferences providing staff development
4 relating to implementation of the new high learning standards and
5 assessments, as adopted by the board of regents. Notwithstanding any
6 other provision of law, rule or regulation to the contrary, school
7 districts may elect to use one or more of such allowable conference days
8 in units of not less than one hour each to provide staff development
9 activities relating to implementation of the new high learning standards
10 and assessments. A district making such election may provide such staff
11 development on any day during which sessions are allowed and apply such
12 units to satisfy a deficiency in the length of one or more daily
13 sessions of instruction for pupils as specified in regulations of the
14 commissioner. The commissioner shall assure that such conference days
15 include appropriate school violence prevention and intervention train-
16 ing, and may require that up to one such conference day be dedicated for
17 such purpose.
18 § 2. Subdivision 2-a of section 3635 of the education law, as sepa-
19 rately amended by chapters 359 and 629 of the laws of 2023, is amended
20 to read as follows:
21 2-a. The superintendent of each city school district, in a city having
22 a population in excess of one million, shall prepare a public school
23 calendar and shall notify officials of nonpublic schools to which trans-
24 portation has been requested not later than the first day of June in
25 each year, of the days on which the public schools will be in session in
26 the following school year. Such school district which provides transpor-
27 tation to nonpublic schools shall provide such transportation for the
28 same number of days as the public schools are open but shall not provide
29 transportation services for more than one hundred eighty days. Offi-
30 cials of each nonpublic school to which transportation is provided by a
31 city school district of a city having a population in excess of one
32 million may notify such district, not later than the first day of July
33 of each school year, of a maximum of five days, exclusive of Saturdays,
34 Sundays or legal holidays upon which public schools are required to be
35 closed, on which the public schools are scheduled to be closed, except
36 that in any year in which the first or last day of Passover and Easter
37 Sunday are separated by more than seven days, such officials may notify
38 the district of a maximum of ten days, but such school district will be
39 required to provide for transportation to such nonpublic school provided
40 that such five or ten additional days, whichever is applicable, are
41 limited to the following: the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
42 after Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the week in which public
43 schools are closed for spring recess, December twenty-fourth and the
44 week between Christmas day and New Year's day, the Tuesday, Wednesday,
45 Thursday and Friday after the observance of Washington's birthday, the
46 first day of the second lunar month after the winter solstice in the
47 preceding calendar year, known as Asian Lunar New Year, the fifteenth
48 day of the eighth month of the Indian calendar in each year, known as
49 Diwali, the holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, as affixed by
50 Muslim religious law and tradition, and, in the boroughs of Brooklyn and
51 Queens only, Anniversary Day as designated in section twenty-five
52 hundred eighty-six of this chapter.
53 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
