Andrea Scapini & Anu Subramaniam
North Pointe
Grosse Pointe North HS
1st Place
Division 2, News Writing
Diversity Coverage
Converting from Roman Catholicism to Islam meant that junior Lawrence Lezuch went from having time off school to observe holidays to observing his holidays and performing his religious routine while balancing school.
“I wake up 5:20, 5:30 in the morning, latest 5:45, and I pray for Fajr, and I usually go back to sleep after that, but I try not to because I don’t like oversleeping. After that, I of course go to school. I am the particular sect of Islam … a Shia, so according to the Shia jurisprudence and all the Shia scholars and whatnot, I am allowed to pray at 12:15 … (and) to do the evening prayer in the middle of the day,” Lezuch said. “Then the other prayer (is) the Asr, so there is Dhuhr and Asr, and I am allowed to pray those two together.”
Due to the fact that Islamic holidays such as Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr occur during the school year, Lezuch must navigate balancing schoolwork and celebration during that time.
“During Ramadan, that’s during the summer, so there is no need for that to conflict with school and whatnot during the summer. But there are certain Eids, which means holiday in English, that aren’t observed here obviously, but in Dearborn, they are. One of the two—there are two Eids, I can say the most prominent one is Eid Al-Adha, which is the same day as Yom Kippur—is commemorating Abraham’s sacrifice,” he said. “I notice a lot of my friends who have been Muslim since birth—they were born into a Muslim family—they usually just skip (school) when there is an Eid.”
District policy states that “upon the signed request of a student’s parent and with appropriate documentation, the Board will allow exceptions to the student’s continuous attendance at school,” meaning that students of minority religions can be excused from school for appropriate allotted celebration time.
However, many students find missing school and having to catch up on missed work more difficult than to remain in school. Junior Mallika Kanneganti’s parents have adjusted the timing of their holiday parties so they don’t conflict with her school schedule.
“The only holiday I celebrate is Diwali, and I have school on that a lot. It changes every year, but usually the end of October, early November,” Kanneganti said.
Diwali is the Hindu celebration of lights that signifies the triumph of good over evil. The holiday celebrates the return of Prince Rama from exile after he defeated the demons plaguing the nation of India.
“My parents don’t really do anything outside of school, but a lot of times there’s a Diwali party on the weekend (instead of ) on the holiday because the parents don’t want kids celebrating on school nights. We moved the party to the weekend instead of the actual day of Diwali,” Kanneganti said.
Counselor Anne Mabley believes that the school system’s current policy makes it simple for students to exercise their freedom of religion.
“I haven’t seen that as real problematic for most kids. If there’s a holiday that they need to worship that day, usually they get called in, and that’s not a problem. I don’t see it as an, as my kids say, epic problem, but I think we respect the fact that there are lots of religious holidays for kids, but we haven’t got a set standard about that,” Mabley said. “I think it’s important that students that know that they’re going to be participating in some sort of ritual, or whatever have you, and they know the day they might be missing, or whatever, days, to tell teachers that because teachers are really wonderful.”
Junior Jacob Kahn feels that missing school to observe his Jewish holidays are similar to missing for being sick.
“I just take school off. I just ask the teachers that I’m gonna be out, and they give me the homework,” Kahn said. “It’s just like me being sick or something or going to the doctor’s or something like that. Usually I miss two days. It depends what day it ends up on, but it’s usually two days. It’s … Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I don’t mind. Either way, I’m getting the day off, so I don’t really care.”
Lezuch also doesn’t mind working around school time. He capitalizes on the downtime that school allows throughout the day to pray.
“It really hasn’t been that big of deal, really,” Lezuch said. “I pray during lunch because … it just happened to match up perfectly, and I work after school.”
Junior Julia Babcock recognizes the sensitivity of maneuvering days off school to accommodate for each religion and feels lucky that school is off on most Christian holidays she observes.
“If it were my religion, and I didn’t have the time off, I would probably be upset, or I would just take it off myself,” Babcock said. “It’s wonderful that we live in a place where that’s so widely celebrated because there’s other places where people are not even allowed to openly voice that they’re Christian, so it’s definitely a blessing, and I’m so thankful that we live in a place where we have time off school.”