THEDP.COM | THE DAILY PENNSYLVANIAN
NEWS 7
THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016
Phila. charter schools to observe Muslim holidays
Holidays not yet on the calendar for public schools CHARLOTTE LARACY Staff Reporter
Mastery Charter Schools, one of Philadelphia’s largest charter school systems, has voted to permanently add two Muslim holidays to the academic calendar, starting in September 2016. The two days off are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — holidays considered to be among the holiest in Islam. Eid al-Fitr is the “Festival of Breaking the Fast,” marking the end of Ramadan. Eid al-Adha is the “Festival of Sacrifice,” which coincides with the end of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca or the Hajj. Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, a senior lecturer in the Graduation School of Education and associate director of the International Educational Development Program,
believes this decision can be a catalyst for larger change within the city. “It is definitely sending a message, and I think it partly depends on advocacy groups who might send messages to the district,” Ghaffar-Kucher said. “I think it is a domino effect. People will definitely be paying attention and watching how people are reaction to this decision. There could potentially be pushback around this.” At Mastery’s charter network, students attend school between 183 and185 days of the year, a few more than the state-required minimum of 180 days. Mastery will add days to the academic calendar to be able to observe the Muslim holidays. According to CBS Philly, the Mastery Charter Schools system has a Muslim population of 5 percent to 20 percent. In total, there are about 200,000 Muslims in
Philadelphia. The decision to observe these holidays comes after efforts by city councilman Curtis Jones, who has advocated for adding these holidays to all Philadelphia schools. Even though the City Council had approved the resolution earlier this year, negotiations must take place between the school district and the unions in order for the two holidays to become official holidays district-wide, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. In the current academic calendar for 2015-16, Philadelphia public schools observe and close for Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Christmas Day and Good Friday. Philadelphia schools also had off when Pope Francis visited in September. New York City public schools recognize the two Muslim holidays in addition to the Lunar New Year during the school year.
COURTESY OF SMALLBONES/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Simon Gratz High School is part of the Mastery Charter Schools network, and will now have time off from school in order to observe two of the holiest days in Islam.
Other school districts, such as Montgomery School District in Maryland, have stripped all references to holidays in the school calendar.
Added challenges for international students in finding summer jobs Lack of contacts can make it harder to find jobs JENNA WANG Staff Reporter
In searching for summer internships in the United States, international students face a number of barriers that domestic students don’t have to worry about. According to a report by Career Services, just over half of international students in the College of Arts and Sciences had summer internships in the United States in 2014, versus 49 percent that reported having internships outside the U.S. 85 percent of U.S. internships taken by College international students were located on the East coast, especially in New York and Pennsylvania. Outside the U.S., just over half of all international internships were located in Asia, with India and China ranking at the top of the list. Engineering junior Amilcar Cipriano, an international student from Mozambique, struggled to find an internship in the U.S. during his first two years of college. “It’s more difficult to find internships in the U.S., specifically engineering internships,” he said. “A lot of the [engineering] companies doing really cool things are working under government funding, and they can’t hire international kids. If you appear international, then you just don’t have a chance.” Due to the sca rcity of mechanical engineering internships for international students in the U.S., Cipriano ended up spending his past two summers abroad. This summer, he finally managed to secure a paid job working at Penn’s
DP FILE PHOTO
United States policies and lack of contacts can serve as barriers to international students trying to find summer internships in the states.
mechanical engineering machine shop. While Cipriano noted that his employers “were almost unwilling to hire me because I’m international,” he said he still thought there were certain advantages to being an international student. “I think it’s very useful to be an international student, to travel abroad and experience something else,” he said. “It broadens your mind and makes you think differently. I think it’s important to have more than just the views you’ve grown up with.” For Engineering freshman Karishma Nanwani, it was a lot easier to find an internship back home in Indonesia than in the U.S. due to family connections. Nanwani had originally applied to internships in the U.S., but decided last minute that she wanted to spend the summer back home instead to be around family. She called her parents to inform them of her decision and secured an internship at
Johnson & Johnson in Jakarta within a week. “My family has lived [in Indonesia] for a really long time, so by now my parents have a lot of connections,” she said. “My dad is good friends with the CEO of Johnson & Johnson in Indonesia, so all he had to do was talk to his friend, and his friend was like, ‘Yeah, send me her resume and I can just put it on the top of the pile at HR.’” Nanwani noted that her lack of connections was the main thing that made it harder for her to find an internship in the U.S. versus at home, rather than her status as an international student. “It’s just the fact that I’m not from here and I don’t have anyone that I know, so getting an internship [in the U.S.] would be a lot harder because there’s no personal connection,” she said. “You’re just in the pool of applicants with everyone else.” College and Wharton sophomore Stephen Cho said that
getting internships in the U.S. was “a little more difficult, but still possible” as an international student from Canada. “I definitely think it’s a little bit harder to find opportunities in the U.S,” Cho said. “There’s more checkpoints for you and your employer, so that complicates things. But I don’t think it’s prohibitive by any means.” Cho didn’t experience any difficulties landing an internship this summer at a health care equity firm in New York City due to his F1 student visa, which gave him legal authorization to work in the U.S. Finding this internship in the U.S., he said, was an important step in his career given his future ambitions to settle in U.S. “In terms of wanting to have my career and my life here, I thought it was really important for me to start having work experience in the U.S.,” Cho said. “That’s why I looked exclusively in the U.S. [for internships this summer].”
“Philadelphia is becoming a more diverse city and becoming a big immigration city. How do you accommodate to certain groups?” Ghaffar-Kucher said.
“It really depends on what kind of community Philadelphia wants to be. Cities like Philadelphia should pay attention to what is happening.”
TASK FORCE >> PAGE 1
formed in 2014 in response to a string of student suicides and, after a year of conducting research and interviews, the task force concluded its study with an eight-page report outlining recommendations to improve the psychological well-being of students. The report published in February 2015 gave four main recommendations: increasing communication to students about the importance of mental health and wellbeing, making information about resources more accessible, educating and training the community about mental health and optimizing resources devoted to Counseling and Psychological Services. Specific recommendations included creating a website centralizing the University’s health resources by the fall of 2015 and clarifying leave of absence policies, which tended to be worded differently across Penn’s schools, as well as involving faculty and instituting an emergency phone line. After the report was released, a cross-campus oversight team was formed to ensure that Penn would
implement the recommendations and that the University would align its efforts with standards set by the Jed and Clinton Health Matters Campus Program, a program helping universities enhance mental health and substance abuse programming over the course of four years. The oversight team was created after Penn failed to implement all of the recommendations of the last mental health task force, which was formed in 2002 in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. This time, the task force will need to evaluate the effects of its 2015 recommendations, which did not set firm deadlines nor include ways to measure the impact of its proposed changes. “We welcome and appreciate the suggestions offered by our students and other members of the Penn community,” the statement said. The president and provost said in their message that “we have not and will not let resources stand in the way of protecting the mental health needs of our community … please be assured that the University will explore every possible avenue in our effort to make Penn a model for addressing mental wellness.”
PHILADELPHIAYELLOWJACKETS.COM | CPCAPITALS.COM