At last night’s unexpectedly heated special Board of Education meeting, Vice President Younass Barkouch was removed from his position and replaced with George Blount. The move came after several members of the coalition that recently voted Barkouch and President Dejon Morris into power were upset with Barkouch’s failed allegiance to the group.
The vote to remove Barkouch was 7-1, with Trustee Natalia Ioffe abstaining. In casting his lone dissenting vote, Barkouch said, “I will not be forced into an allegiance.”
When introducing the motion, Trustee Afaf Muhammad claimed that Barkouch used his new position for personal gain to rally community members to strongly advocate for moving the day the district is celebrating Eid this year.
Muhammad said, “You dangled your allegiance to us to try to persuade us to vote certain ways for you and it’s unfair, unjust, and I cannot sit with leadership like that.”
Barkouch said that we would respect the decision of the board, but expressed his disappointment with the board’s failure to properly observe Eid.
On the district’s current calendar, Eid is to be observed on Monday April 8, which will extend Spring Break by a day, but the proper day of observance this year should be Wednesday April 10. The exact date of observance changes yearly based on the lunar calendar. “There is no way to know the exact date other than to guesstimate” until about two weeks before the day, according to Barkouch.
“If you’re going to schedule a date for a holiday for a religious group to observe, you pick the right day, otherwise you do not choose a day at all,” he said. “It is not respectful of the Muslim community to schedule Eid for April 8 while we’re still fasting” for Ramadan.
Barkouch did not respond to a request for comment.
Trustee Christopher Tisdale likened the observance date to Juneteenth, which is being observed on June 21 this year, instead of the official holiday on June 19. “The school district is not responsible, unfortunately, for integrating people’s religious beliefs,” he said, noting that any complaints about the calendar have to be made earlier. “Everybody cannot be accommodated all the time.”
Various members of the community, both Muslim and not, spoke out during public comment about the discrepancy and the “immense significance” moving the observance day would have.
Some speakers noted that the state Department of Education accurately lists Eid as being observed on April 10, while others suggested that this same oversight would not happen for other religious holidays, such as Christmas.
According to one parent, having a day off for a religious celebration should be used as such, otherwise it “defeats the purpose of having a day off.”
Similarly, Local 2262 AFSCME President Lakeisha Jenkins said that it would be unfair to district employees who celebrate Eid to be forced to use a day off of work to celebrate their holiday.