Rosh Hashana, the head of the Jewish year, is a holiday meant to be a time of reflection and repentance as we enter into a new year. However, for many Dubs, this time in early fall represents stress as they brace themselves to miss three days of school. While some schools choose to give all students the day off for the high holidays, APS schools do not do so. While it’s understandable that these days aren’t given off as there is not a huge Jewish population here, having to miss three days of school often leaves me and other Jewish students feeling exhausted and frustrated during what is supposed to be a peaceful and reflective time.

Jewish students often have to miss important assignments and events due to holidays. For the past two years, homecoming week has fallen during Rosh Hashana. It has felt extremely exclusive when this happens, as homecoming is such a big part of the high school experience. In addition, during the 2021/22 school year, picture day fell on Yom Kippur, the most important day on the Jewish calendar. Jewish Dubs were then forced to miss even more class just to get their picture in the yearbook like every other student. For me, this lack of consideration when planning is honestly very irksome. It’s unsettling that the school could ignore a whole group of students so easily. It feels like North Atlanta, which boasts about how much it values diversity, is okay with casting aside some of its students instead of simply changing when these activities occur.

Additionally, there is a fear around the holidays that teachers will start behaving differently once you reveal that you are Jewish. Instead of being able to focus on preparing for the holidays, I often find myself worrying about how to bring up the fact that I will be missing school because of these holidays. While most teachers are gracious and give students extensions on assignments they miss, there are always a few who act like the greater inconvenience is to them. These negative experiences, while rare, overshadow all of the experiences where a teacher has gone above and beyond to help a student. These teachers often judge the student, causing them to have a negative bias toward these students for the rest of the year.

The peaceful oblivion many students get to live in, as their peers get pushed aside in favor of a social calendar, is disheartening at a school like North Atlanta that is so encouraging of open-mindedness. It is important that as a school, efforts must be made to not alienate any students. Ignorance never results in bliss for the group being ignored.