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Subcommittee holds school-holidays bill pending talks with SEIU and MCPS
Summary
The Montgomery County subcommittee agreed to hold a bill that would make several cultural and religious observances official school holidays after members raised concerns that added holidays might increase unpaid days for supporting services personnel; members asked that SEIU and Montgomery County Public Schools be invited to the next session.
The Election, Education and Housing Subcommittee agreed to hold consideration of a school-holidays bill to allow further consultation with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The chair summarized the proposal as codifying current practice by creating official school holidays for “the first day of Diwali, Eid al-Adha, Eid al-Fitr, Lunar New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Juneteenth.”
Members voiced broad support for the intent but said more detail was needed about fiscal and operational impacts. “I will vote yes because the the students that testified were so persuasive, but I do have that concern that there is already great discrepancy in the pay…of supporting services personnel versus teachers,” Delegate Kaufman said, noting that additional holidays could increase unpaid days for represented workers and that SEIU had been identified as a stakeholder.
Co-sponsor Delegate Shee said she shared the concern and asked whether the bill could be special-ordered or whether the committee could wait until Delegate Wu or SEIU representatives could attend to discuss fiscal impacts. Delegate Shetty recommended inviting both MCPS and SEIU to the next discussion so those groups could explain how workers would be affected.
The chair said the committee would hold the bill and reconvene next week with more information. No vote was taken on the bill during the session.
The decision to hold the measure leaves its substantive details—budget implications for support staff, administrative adjustments and any proposed mitigation—pending further stakeholder meetings and staff analysis.
