Parents who told the Stafford County School Board that removing religious holidays while adding instructional days amounted to “covert oppression” helped push the board to keep those days on the 2027-28 calendar.
The board voted 6-1 on Oct. 27 to approve version 2 of the calendar, which keeps federal holidays plus religious and cultural days the division has observed in recent years, including Yom Kippur, Diwali and Eid. A substitute motion for version 3, which would have kept only federal holidays, failed 4-3.
Ashmina Amir, a Stafford resident, told the board that Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and Muslim students should not be excluded from the extra instructional hours simply because their holidays fall outside the scheduled breaks. She called the removal of those days “covert oppression.”
Qazi Abbas, another Stafford resident, argued that children should not have to choose between faith observances — Yom Kippur, Diwali, Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr — and attendance or makeup work. He cited scriptures from multiple traditions.
Fourteen people signed up to speak at the special-called meeting and public hearing; the two who addressed the board both supported keeping the religious holidays.
Supporting the federal-only version were Vice Chair Dr. Sarah Chase, Patricia Healy and Susan Randall. Opposing it were Chair Dr. Elizabeth Warner, Wanda Blackwell, Shannon Fingerholz and Josh Regan, who participated electronically. Version 2 then passed with Chase the only no vote.
Both calendars are 180 instructional days, up from 172 this year. The board and staff have repeatedly noted that the division has not met the state standard of 180 instructional days or 990 hours since the 2021-22 school year. Stafford exceeds the hour total but has fallen short on days.
The calendar vote sits inside a larger instructional-time problem. Potomac Local reported Sept. 4 that Stafford high schools deliver about 121.8 seat hours per course, 18.2 hours short of Virginia’s 140-hour credit standard on the current A/B schedule. On Oct. 13 the board approved a middle school schedule change 5-2 that raises science and social studies hours to 152 while cutting elective hours from about 88–99 to 76. Healy and Randall voted no on that change.
Chase said contacts from teachers and parents in her district favored the federal-only calendar. She argued version 2 covers only a handful of religions and leaves out others, raised church-and-state concerns, and said the extra days create childcare and summer-job problems.
Blackwell said she initially leaned toward version 3 but returned to version 2 after reflecting on a Christian principle of love, the need to represent all faiths, and a letter from the Stafford Education Association warning that mass teacher absences on the same religious days create staffing problems.
Fingerholz said she had tracked roughly 101 messages supporting version 2 against about 20 for version 3, plus a petition with more than 700 signatures. She cited operational impacts if many staff members are out on the same days.
Warner said she could not support version 3. She noted that families already have to take extra steps for absences and makeup work, that hundreds or thousands of the division’s roughly 30,000 students are affected, and that recent practice should not be reversed until the board finishes a policy review. She added that major Christian holidays are already protected by winter break and a Sunday Easter, and that removing other days risks teaching that “we’re not all the same” at a time of rising antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry.
Regan said the fairest outcome is that every religion can celebrate without a school-day conflict.
Superintendent Dr. Daniel W. Smith told the board that the calendar committee under Policy 1501 invited members of the superintendent’s advisory groups — more than 100 people — held three in-person meetings with 30 to 40 people attending each, offered an asynchronous survey, and started from scratch on what the calendar should include.
After the calendar votes, the board went into closed session to consult counsel on consolidated Stafford Circuit Court condemnation cases. No open action followed.
