When it comes to religion, the ICCSD aims to create an environment that is inclusive to everyone. They try to achieve this through policies and guidelines that have the intent of making it easier on students whose religious practices conflict with the school schedule.

“One of the things that we are very conscious of is that it’s clear to the students, staff and the communities that as a public school, we are open to everybody,” said Superintendent Steve Murley. “Our goal is to accommodate people’s needs when they come through our door, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, language spoken and religion.”

An obstacle that students practicing religions other than Christianity face is trying to stay on top of schoolwork when they have to be absent from school. The ICCSD has a written policy requiring the school to excuse any absences due to religious celebrations. This makes certain that students don’t feel pressured to attend school instead of celebrating a holiday.

“One of the things that we’ve been working very hard to do is to ensure that we are a truly responsive school district and that we are proactive,” Murley said. “We try to determine where areas of conflict may lie, and then [we try] to develop resolutions to those conflicts.”

In order to resolve conflicts between religion and schooling, Murley works with local Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious leaders to create a religious calendar provided to ICCSD staff. This calendar includes the major holidays that the main religions in the district celebrate to make sure that teachers are aware of certain days that students might have to miss.

“I actually went and met with the imam at the mosque and the rabbi over at the temple and a couple of Christian religious leaders, and I had them help me determine … what the most important religious holidays that fall during the
school year were,” Murley said. “Then we talked to accommodate student needs when they were in conflict with school.”

A common practice for many religions, one that the ICCSD tries to incorporate into their goal of inclusivity, is praying. A significant part of many students’ religions includes praying at times that fall throughout the school day. Massa Suleiman ’22, who is Muslim, feels that the school is quite amenable to this practice.

“[The school] offers us rooms in the West Wing Office to pray,” Suleiman said. “Teachers are also very understanding when I need to come to class a bit late.”

A school year’s worth of material crammed into just over three hours of testing. Fifty-five multiple choice questions, three short answer questions and the ever-dreaded long essay question and document-based question. As stressful as an AP exam can be, students like Razan Hamza ’21 faced an additional obstacle last year when their AP exam overlapped with the celebration of Ramadan.

In the spring of 2019, West students took the AP European History exam on May 6, the same day Muslims across the world celebrated the start of Ramadan, a holiday in which they fast from sunrise to sunset. Hamza remembers multiple occasions where she had to take a test on a day that she was fasting, but the AP Euro exam was the one that stuck out the most.

“I was extremely worried,” Hamza said. “I was thinking, ‘Taking this test while dehydrated is probably going to be the worst decision I’ll make this year.’”

Hamza isn’t the only student who has faced difficulties regarding the AP testing period and fasting.

“Fasting during an AP test is something that has happened multiple times that I’ve had students talk to me about,” AP Human Geography teacher Megan Johnson said. “I don’t think that there’s any formal accommodations for those students where you can take it at a different time or anything like that.”

Due to the lack of accommodations provided by the College Board, students have had to create an individual plan to work their fasting schedule around the exam. This includes getting up before sunrise to eat a big meal, or breaking
their fast on the day of the exam and making it up on an extra day.

“I think that it does become difficult for some students, particularly if you have an afternoon test,” Johnson said. “There’s not any sort of formal policy that I’m aware of from College Board, but my experience has been that the individual students find their own ways of navigating through it.”

For students who cannot attend the regularly scheduled AP exam, College Board offers an option to sign up for a make-up exam later on in May. The late testing date is available free of additional charges for circumstances including a bomb or fire scare, an athletic event, another AP test at the same time or religious celebrations. This year, however, both the normal exam weeks and the make-up exam weeks will fall during Ramadan, as it lasts from April 23 to May 23 in the 2020 year.

It’s not just AP tests that can overlap with religious celebrations. Evan Zukin ’22 remembers a recent stressful time when he had multiple tests to make up after missing a single day of school.

“One time this year I had three tests on the same day as [Yom Kippur] and I spent the next week making them all up,” Zukin said. “[My teachers] were all accommodating, and they understood that I had to miss that day.”

Although there’s no district policy that prevents teachers from giving tests on major religious holidays when students may be out of school, the district’s guidelines strongly encourage ICCSD staff to keep the celebrations in mind while planning their courses.

“We go over that [religious] calendar that all staff members can see once a year, and we remind them that it is our intent — not a policy, but our intent — that they not hold exams on the holy days in particular for Christianity, Judaism and Islam,” Murley said. “The intent is not to have major assignments due or major tests on those dates or in the days immediately following.”

It is the policy of the ICCSD not to discriminate on the basis of religion in its educational programs, activities or employment practices. If a student ever needs to miss classes for a religious reason, this absence will be excused by the administration.

Even though these students’ absences are approved, having to miss class can be very stressful for a high school learner. While the ICCSD cannot accommodate every religion and each of their holidays, they look at many different components when determining the calendar, including the University of Iowa calendar as well as the breaks in between the trimesters. However, the one consistency over the years has been two weeks off for winter break that coincides with
the Christian holiday of Christmas.

In recent years, the district has seen a push for more days off of school for Islamic holidays. According to Johnson, several people have spoken out about this at school board meetings, but nothing has moved forward as of yet.

“I know there have been a lot of community members who have expressed their desire for that to happen at school board meetings,” Johnson said. “We take days off all the time for other reasons, whether it’s Christian religious holidays or taking the day off between trimesters, so there’s no reason it couldn’t happen.”

One Islamic holiday in particular has been brought to the school board’s attention by the community. For the past couple years, Eid al-Fitr, a celebration in which the month-long fasting of Ramadan comes to an end, has fallen
over the summer months. However, because the Islamic faith follows the lunar calendar, the holiday will overlap with school days in a few years.

“We’ve actually talked to the calendar committee about whether or not we will have those days off [for Eid],” Murley said. “We’ve also talked to the rabbi to see if we’re recognizing those other specific Jewish holidays that we should also consider, so we’re trying to make sure again that we’re being as inclusive as possible in that process.”