A growing number of districts with large Asian American student populations have added Diwali as a day off on their school calendars—and more are expected to do so as states pass laws that officially recognize the holiday.
Most recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Oct. 6 that will officially recognize the holiday, which is significant to Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and Buddhists. The new law, which takes effect in 2026, will excuse school absences for students to mark Diwali, which celebrates the triumph of light over darkness. It also authorizes districts to close schools for the holiday, which falls on Oct. 20 this year.
The move is part of a larger trend: As schools’ student bodies grow more diverse, the annual calendar planning process grows more complex. Among others, districts over time have added Diwali, Eid al-Fitr, and Lunar New Year as days off. That can create challenges when holidays end up clustered close together, but it can also help districts avoid high rates of absenteeism from students who might skip school to celebrate, leaders said.
Students and families say recognition of major holidays helps build a sense of belonging and trust in schools.
“It’s really significant,” said Samir Kalra, the managing director of the Hindu American Foundation, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. “When I was younger, we never even thought about the idea of taking the day off. Now I have two daughters of my own, and I really look forward to being able to celebrate as a family.”
California’s new law follows similar measures enacted in Pennsylvania in 2024 and Connecticut in June.
Kalra’s organization, which championed the California bill, has two additional goals: to press more states to recognize Diwali and to ask California districts with significant South Asian populations to add it to their calendars.
“This was the first step, albeit a very important and significant step,” he said.
Planning school calendars becomes more complex
The changes come amid demographic shifts in schools across the country. While white students made up 51% of U.S. public school students in 2012, they are projected to represent 42 percent of total enrollment by 2031, according to the most recent federal data. Meanwhile, federal demographers project Asian American, Latino, and multiracial populations will continue to grow.
In the 13,000-student North Penn district in Pennsylvania, where 20% of students are Asian American, leaders added Diwali to the calendar in 2021, well before the state passed its law recognizing Diwali. Prior to that, days off fell on Christian and Jewish holidays, and leaders believed students from other cultural and religious backgrounds might have felt overlooked, Superintendent Todd Bauer said.
“Our calendar was the same as it had been since 1950,” he said.
When Bauer met with Muslim and Hindu leaders to identify the most significant holidays in their religions, he determined the district should give students days off on Diwali and Eid al-Fitr, a major holiday in Islam when observers end their Ramadan fasts. He did so without removing student learning days from the calendar by scheduling teacher work days on the two holidays.
Because many holidays are based on lunar calendars, they don’t fall on the same day each year. Some years, they fall on weekends and don’t require a day off. But other years, holidays like Presidents’ Day and the Lunar New Year are clustered close together, creating attendance concerns on the days between them, Bauer said.
So the North Penn school board has to start the calendar planning process fresh each year, being thoughtful about when they schedule professional development, holidays, and long weekends likely to depress attendance, Bauer said.
The majority of states require schools to have at least 180 instructional days a year, and districts must also account for possible snow days in their calendars. The planning process can be fraught.
Bauer said he’s heard from Asian American families who appreciate efforts to recognize their holidays. He’s also heard requests for days off from other religious and cultural groups, like Orthodox Christians, who celebrate holidays like Christmas on a different schedule than Protestants and Roman Catholics. While he can’t grant a full day off for every holiday, he offers excused absences for students from minority populations who wish to celebrate.
“We can’t honor all holidays because we’d be going to school year round,” Bauer said. “We can’t be all things to all people, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to cultivate a community and culture where everyone feels like they are cared for.”
Building belonging in schools
The calendar shifts come as schools work to build a sense of belonging among students, which researchers have tied to stronger attendance, improved school climates, and increased engagement in the classroom.
Researchers in other countries have found recognizing holidays in schools helps students who celebrate them “feel recognized and accepted” and helps build cultural competency among the rest of the student body, said Carol Huang, an assistant professor of education at the City College of New York.
“People get to know your culture much more,” she said.
Schools are also motivated by practical concerns. If New Year’s Day falls on a Thursday, they are likely to tack the Friday after onto a holiday break, anticipating many students will be absent anyway. In Kansas City, Mo., many districts took school off for the Chiefs’ Superbowl victory parade in 2024.
Before New York added the Lunar New Year as a statewide school holiday through a 2023 law, New York City schools saw attendance rates as low as 30% at schools with high enrollments of Asian students on that holiday, Huang said. The city adopted the holiday in 2016, following years of coordination and campaigning among various Asian groups, she said. This year, the city also added Diwali and Eid al-Adha, the second of the two major festivals in Islam.
Respecting varying cultures, religions
In other parts of the country, districts have sought to recognize holidays and mitigate the fallout from related absences without adding days off. In Beaverton, Ore., for example, teachers are directed to avoid scheduling tests or major assignments on designated “major holidays,” including Diwali.
“We are in a culture and a country where it’s just taken for granted that not only is Christmas going to be off, but that whole week is going to be off,” said Richard Foltin, a fellow for religious freedom at Freedom Forum, an organization that studies and advocates for freedoms provided under the First Amendment.
When schools add other religious holidays to the calendar, he said, “it’s not that we are doing something special for these students [of other faiths]. We are acknowledging that the system is already built around a particular religious practice. What we are doing is putting the other faiths on a level playing field.”
The U.S. Department of Education has repeatedly stressed that, while schools can’t promote a particular religion, they are obligated to accommodate students’ religious beliefs as long as they don’t disrupt the education of other students. For example, Muslim students may be briefly excused from class to pray.
Kalra, of the Hindu American Foundation, said he is not aware of any California districts that have added Diwali to their calendars, but the organization plans to discuss the issue with local school boards.
“As a [South Asian] community, we value education, oftentimes ahead of many other things,” Kalra said. “Oftentimes that leaves a difficult choice for parents and students whether they will take a day off to celebrate or be in school and do what it takes to academically do well.”
