Stoke-on-Trent City Council has issued directives to school officials to accommodate Muslim students during Ramadan, including canceling swimming lessons, tests, and sex ed classes.
Swimming practices for Muslim pupils should be canceled because of the danger of swallowing water during their fast. Likewise, sex ed classes would be inappropriate since boys who have reached puberty are not allowed to have sexual thoughts. What is most striking is that, during the month of Ramadan, teachers are encouraged to reschedule any tests because Muslim pupils are likely to be underperforming during the month.
The guidelines raise an interesting question of the extent to which a school can accommodate religion without entangling state with religion. Postponing tests certainly pushes that line since Ramadan is a practice embraced by students in their private lives. Likewise, it is not clear how the school deals with a one-month delay in a scheduling course like sex ed courses.
Source: BBC.
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Re the test taking. Make them take the tests at night after they have eaten. This is ridiculous.
I don’t see the big deal – schools accommodate Christians (Good Friday, Christmas, etc.) and Jews (Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, etc.), why not Muslims?
what is the ratio of muslim vrs non-muslim students in the school system over there anyway?
Rescheduling tests … are the Loyola Law School (L.A.) Jesuits running Stoke-on-Trent schools now? … just sounds like a different kind of GPA fixing
The swimming and sex ed? Those can be characterized as reasonable accommodation.
The rescheduling tests? That’s simple ass-kissing. It’s SCHOOL. Testing the part of the raison d’être for forming schools in the first place and it’s not forbidden by the religion in question.