While the San Francisco Unified School District is happy to impart an anti-tobacco message to its young students, unfortunately it chose to do so on a Jewish holiday.
A district-wide anti-smoking field trip to Pacific Bell Park for third, fourth and fifth-graders will take place on Tuesday– Rosh Hashanah. Offered four possible dates by the San Francisco Giants — Sept. 4, 5, 18 and 19 — the school district chose to hold the event, which is sponsored by Catholic Healthcare West, on Tuesday.
“I don’t think there’s any malicious intent, somebody didn’t pull out the calendar and made a stupid mistake,” said Gail Green, director of the Jewish Community Information and Referral Volunteer Placement Project. Green’s daughter Ilana, a fourth-grader at Clarendon Elementary School, will not attend the Pac Bell Park event.
The students who go will take part in an anti-smoking assembly at the ballpark during the day, but won’t stay for the Giants’ night game against the Houston Astros.
Jackie Berman, the Jewish Community Relations Council’s education specialist, said the JCRC only takes a stand in holiday conflicts in which Jewish students would be penalized for not attending an event. Still, Berman adds, it’s unfortunate that Jewish children won’t be able to participate in the field trip.
Some were offended. “I think it’s outrageous,” said Tamara Gallanter, whose fourth-grade son, Jules Cowan, also attends Clarendon. “This is a school district that takes a holiday and observes the Chinese New Year. They recognize that event and are culturally sensitive, yet choose to hold a district-wide trip on one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar.”
The JCRC sends a seven-year calendar of Jewish holidays to local school districts twice a year, and has done so for at least 20 years, according to Berman.
A frustrated Gallanter points out, however, that Rosh Hashanah is on every major calendar, religious or not.
“I’m planning on writing a letter to the school district,” said Green. “I’m disturbed that my kid was excluded from this fabulous event.”
Oftentimes, school districts cannot help but schedule events on the High Holy Days, said Berman. This year, an oceanography class at Santa Rosa’s Maria Carillo High is taking a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium on Rosh Hashanah. But, Berman points out, the aquarium decided the day via a lottery as the culmination of a lengthy application process.
“It’s a shame that Jewish students won’t be able to participate in this, but this is not a real penalty that the Jewish community will officially go to the mat for,” she said. “If the teacher gave a test based on the Monterey trip and students who didn’t go were then penalized, that’s something we’d go to the mat for.”