Bill Text: NY S06179 | 2023-2024 | General Assembly | Amended
Bill Title: Establishes Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as school holidays, with dates established by religious law and tradition.
Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 22-4)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-05-09 - PRINT NUMBER 6179A [S06179 Detail]
Download: New_York-2023-S06179-Amended.html
STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 6179--A 2023-2024 Regular Sessions IN SENATE April 3, 2023 ___________ Introduced by Sens. FERNANDEZ, JACKSON, BRISPORT, CANZONERI-FITZPATRICK, CLEARE, COONEY, GIANARIS, GONZALEZ, GOUNARDES, HARCKHAM, HOYLMAN-SI- GAL, MARTINEZ, MARTINS, MAYER, MURRAY, MYRIE, PARKER, RAMOS, RHOADS, RIVERA, RYAN, SALAZAR, SEPULVEDA, SKOUFIS, STAVISKY, THOMAS -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Judiciary -- recommitted to the Committee on Judiciary in accordance with Senate Rule 6, sec. 8 -- committee discharged, bill amended, ordered reprinted as amended and recommitted to said commit- tee 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, the holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid 7 al-Adha, as affixed by Muslim religious law and tradition, or a legal 8 holiday, except general election day, Washington's birthday and 9 Lincoln's birthday, and except that driver education classes may be 10 conducted on a Saturday. A deficiency not exceeding four days during any 11 school year caused by teachers' attendance upon conferences held by 12 superintendents of schools of city school districts or other school 13 districts employing superintendents of schools shall be excused by the 14 commissioner, notwithstanding any provision of law, rule or regulation 15 to the contrary, a school district may elect to schedule such conference 16 days in the last two weeks of August, subject to collective bargaining 17 requirements pursuant to article fourteen of the civil service law, and 18 such days shall be counted towards the required one hundred eighty days EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [] is old law to be omitted. LBD07656-03-4S. 6179--A 2 1 of session, provided however, that such scheduling shall not alter the 2 obligation of the school district to provide transportation to students 3 in non-public elementary and secondary schools or charter schools. At 4 least two such conference days during such school year shall be dedi- 5 cated to staff attendance upon conferences providing staff development 6 relating to implementation of the new high learning standards and 7 assessments, as adopted by the board of regents. Notwithstanding any 8 other provision of law, rule or regulation to the contrary, school 9 districts may elect to use one or more of such allowable conference days 10 in units of not less than one hour each to provide staff development 11 activities relating to implementation of the new high learning standards 12 and assessments. A district making such election may provide such staff 13 development on any day during which sessions are allowed and apply such 14 units to satisfy a deficiency in the length of one or more daily 15 sessions of instruction for pupils as specified in regulations of the 16 commissioner. The commissioner shall assure that such conference days 17 include appropriate school violence prevention and intervention train- 18 ing, and may require that up to one such conference day be dedicated for 19 such purpose. 20 § 2. Subdivision 2-a of section 3635 of the education law, as sepa- 21 rately amended by chapters 359 and 629 of the laws of 2023, is amended 22 to read as follows: 23 2-a. The superintendent of each city school district, in a city having 24 a population in excess of one million, shall prepare a public school 25 calendar and shall notify officials of nonpublic schools to which trans- 26 portation has been requested not later than the first day of June in 27 each year, of the days on which the public schools will be in session in 28 the following school year. Such school district which provides transpor- 29 tation to nonpublic schools shall provide such transportation for the 30 same number of days as the public schools are open but shall not provide 31 transportation services for more than one hundred eighty days. Offi- 32 cials of each nonpublic school to which transportation is provided by a 33 city school district of a city having a population in excess of one 34 million may notify such district, not later than the first day of July 35 of each school year, of a maximum of five days, exclusive of Saturdays, 36 Sundays or legal holidays upon which public schools are required to be 37 closed, on which the public schools are scheduled to be closed, except 38 that in any year in which the first or last day of Passover and Easter 39 Sunday are separated by more than seven days, such officials may notify 40 the district of a maximum of ten days, but such school district will be 41 required to provide for transportation to such nonpublic school provided 42 that such five or ten additional days, whichever is applicable, are 43 limited to the following: the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 44 after Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the week in which public 45 schools are closed for spring recess, December twenty-fourth and the 46 week between Christmas day and New Year's day, the Tuesday, Wednesday, 47 Thursday and Friday after the observance of Washington's birthday, the 48 first day of the second lunar month after the winter solstice in the 49 preceding calendar year, known as Asian Lunar New Year, the fifteenth 50 day of the eighth month of the Indian calendar in each year, known as 51 Diwali, the holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, as affixed by 52 Muslim religious law and tradition, and, in the boroughs of Brooklyn and 53 Queens only, Anniversary Day as designated in section twenty-five 54 hundred eighty-six of this chapter. 55 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
