Public School Fully Embraces Muslim Holidays, Calls Easter ‘Spring Break’
John Overton High School, a taxpayer-funded public school in Nashville, has drawn national outrage after a local newspaper published a feature story celebrating the school’s decision to fully embraced the Islamic holidays. Watch my report below:
The school provides a food-free zone during lunchtime for Muslim students who are fasting, the Nashville Banner reported. The Muslim kids also have reserved space on campus to pray. Muslim students are also provided electronic hall passes so they can leave class for 15 minutes to pray. Teachers also decorate their rooms with Muslim holiday decor.
Revas Barwari’s connection to her students is clear in her classroom decorations. One wall is covered with photos she’s taken with her students, and another with drawings students have gifted her. There’s a map of Kurdistan above her desk and a box of prayer mats in the corner that students often borrow to pray at school.
She also has string lights, yet as students settled in for third period at 10:30 a.m., the overhead lights were on. She explained that she keeps all the lights on throughout Ramadan, because she knows the students are tired.
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Barwari is one of 10 teachers who signed up to offer her classroom as a food-free zone during lunchtime. Jenna Hagengruber, the school’s director of activities, created a sign-up sheet for teachers, so that students who are fasting would not have to sit in the cafeteria and watch their peers eat.
It’s one of several accommodations arranged by the administration for Muslim students. The school has also reserved space on campus where students can pray in the afternoon, since one of the five daily prayers falls during the school day. Hagengruber created a sign up sheet for students to receive electronic hall passes granting them permission to leave class for 15 minutes to pray. More than 80 students signed up.
At least two Tennessee congressmen are disturbed by the school’s coziness with the Islamic holidays.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who represents the district where the school is located, said teachers are even providing prayer rugs for students.
“Meanwhile, Christians have seen every trace of their religion erased from American education,” he wrote on X.
Rep. John Rose (R-TN), who is running for the Republican nomination to be governor, said “political correctness has overtaken common sense.”
Rose noted that the school district “merely referred to the Christian holy day of Good Friday as “Spring Holiday” on its official calendar.
Overton High School’s cafeteria was decorated in gold and blue proclaiming, “Ramadan Mubarak” and “Ramadan Kareem.” The entire cafeteria was decked out in stars, moons, lanterns and string lights.
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Jackson Heaberlin, a conservative pundit who appeared on my Newsmax television show, said there’s clearly a double standard.
“I know that I went to public high school and I don’t really remember getting time off for Ash Wednesday,” the Clemson University student said. “I was sitting in class like everyone else. So I find it really ridiculous that we’re seeing accommodations made for a religion that is a minority in what was a Christian-founded country. I don’t think you see this accommodation for any other faiths in any other public school districts in America.”
Ryan Leonard, the president of the College Republicans at New York University, said he experienced a similar anti-Christian attitude during his years in high school.
“When I was in high school, teachers couldn’t even talk about God. You never heard the name Jesus Christ mentioned, but you hear all of these accommodations being made for Muslim students,” Leonard told me.
Leonard said the Christian faith “is being erased from the schools” and said “it’s really concerning.”
I wonder if Overton High School celebrates the Jewish and Christian faiths with as much gusto as they do the Muslim faith? Do they erect a Nativity in the cafeteria during the 12 days of Christmas? Is there a banner proclaiming that Jesus is the reason for the season? I reached out to the school to find out if classrooms and hallways are decorated to celebrate the Christian holidays, but so far, there’s been no response.
And what’s especially peculiar is the silence from atheist groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation and anti-Christian hate groups like the ACLU and Americans United For the Separation of Church and State. That crowd gets triggered by teachers handing out candy canes. But there’s not been a word of condemnation about a public school being turned into a taxpayer-funded mosque.
Perhaps the atheists are afraid igniting such a controversy might blow up in their faces?