Teacher updates petition to restore religious days as days off

Updated petition

Last week, high school English teacher Giancarlo Malchiodi started a petition in an effort for New York students, families and teachers to maintain spring break vacation.

Now, he has updated the petition to request that the first days of Passover and Holy Thursday/Good Friday be RESTORED as days offs.

On Friday, April 3, NYC School Chancellor Richard Carranza tweeted about the situation.

Carranza's reponse

“For the health & wellbeing of all, the City & the State agree schools must continue to offer remote learning, including on days previously scheduled as breaks,” he wrote. “Schools will therefore continue with remote learning through 4/9-4/17, originally scheduled for Spring Recess.”

He added, “We know many New Yorkers plan to observe religious holidays on 4/9 & 4/10. Any students & school staff who wish to observe those holidays may do so. However, they will not be considered “days off” @NYCSchools. Remote learning will continue for students who aren’t observing.”

Malchiodi disagreed with the decision made by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“For these particular days to be school days was the Mayor's call ALONE, and his decision not only dismisses those many families of faith, but disregards the traumatic reality that ALL families have faced and are facing in this pandemic that simply requires some mental downtime to process,” he wrote. “TWO DAYS ‘OFF’– not "just" for we 75K+ teachers, but far moreso for our 1.1+M students and their families– is not a great expectation, and neither will these two days endanger the young, their parents, or the flattening of the viral curve."

The petition currently has over 35,000 signatures.

He asked de Blasio to, “reconsider your decision to keep ‘Distance Learning’ school OPEN these days and to instead recognize the SUPERIOR needs of households across this City during this time of great crisis. Leadership is not only the moments of fervid determination, but also those more rare moments of admission of misjudgment.”