Tiger Question: Do you think it’s fair that Newton Public Schools gives no-homework days or days off for some holidays, yet not for others? And how should the school respect all religions without making some kids feel disregarded?
Everyone has their own religion and should be able to celebrate it how they choose. Just because some are more popular than others doesn’t mean some should be ignored.
—freshman Eli Adler-Cohen
If there are a lot of people who celebrate the holiday, they should get no homework days. It also depends on how important the holiday is. If it’s a big holiday, we should have school off, or at least no homework.
—freshman Deirdre Boyer
There’s a girl in my gym class who is about to N out of gym because she was observing a holiday. It shouldn’t count as an absence if you’re observing a holiday.
—sophomore Laura Andersen
I think we should be able to make a petition and if enough people sign it, the school will respect their need to observe the holiday.
—sophomore Natalie Cotter 
If there’s a holiday that not a lot of people celebrate they should be able to celebrate it and not have it count as an absence from school while the rest of the school has no homework days.
—sohomores Katie Bradshaw and Kelsey Getchell
It’s not fair. People in our school could be from any different religion. Kids want to spend time with their families on holidays.
—junior Owen Boucher

Everyone should have holidays off. One religion is not more important than another. But then again, if we had no school on all holidays we wouldn’t ever have school. We should just respect people’s absences on holidays and have no homework days for those holidays.

—junior Jenya Caplan

On high holidays there should be no school but on other holidays we should do school but no homework.
—senior Doug Friedberg
We should have days off on certain ones and give the kids a chance to celebrate the holidays without missing school.
—senior Meghan Lyons-Dunckel