S T A T E   O F   N E W   Y O R K
 ________________________________________________________________________
 
                                   2075
 
                        2023-2024 Regular Sessions
 
                             I N  S E N A T E
 
                             January 18, 2023
                                ___________
 
 Introduced  by  Sen. ADDABBO -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
   printed to be committed to the Committee on Education
 
 AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to certain  school  holi-
   days; and to repeal certain provisions of such law relating thereto
 
   THE  PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, REPRESENTED IN SENATE AND ASSEM-
 BLY, DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
 
   Section 1. Legislative intent. The legislature hereby finds  that  the
 festival of Diwali is celebrated by a growing number of Hindu, Buddhist,
 Jain  and  Sikh residents, including Native New Yorkers and residents of
 the city of New York hailing from  several  countries  including  India,
 Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Guyana, Trinidad and Toba-
 go  and  Sri Lanka. In recognition of the importance of this festival to
 these residents, it is the legislature's intent  that  this  act  allows
 Diwali  to be designated as a school holiday in the city school district
 of the city of New York while continuing to allow the district to ensure
 that schools are in session for 180 days.
   § 2. Section 2586 of the education law is REPEALED.
   § 3. Subdivision 2-a of section 3635 of the education law, as  amended
 by chapter 424 of the laws of 2005, is amended to read as follows:
   2-a. The superintendent of each city school district, in a city having
 a  population  in  excess  of one million, shall prepare a public school
 calendar and shall notify officials of nonpublic schools to which trans-
 portation has been requested not later than the first  day  of  June  in
 each year, of the days on which the public schools will be in session in
 the following school year. Such school district which provides transpor-
 tation  to  nonpublic  schools shall provide such transportation for the
 same number of days as the public schools are open but shall not provide
 transportation services for more than one hundred eighty  days.    Offi-
 cials  of each nonpublic school to which transportation is provided by a
 city school district of a city having a  population  in  excess  of  one
 million  may  notify such district, not later than the first day of July
 
  EXPLANATION--Matter in ITALICS (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                       [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                            LBD02941-01-3
              

 S. 2075                             2
 
 of each school year, of a maximum of five days, exclusive of  Saturdays,
 Sundays  or  legal holidays upon which public schools are required to be
 closed, on which the public schools are scheduled to be  closed,  except
 that  in  any year in which the first or last day of Passover and Easter
 Sunday are separated by more than seven days, such officials may  notify
 the  district of a maximum of ten days, but such school district will be
 required to provide for transportation to such nonpublic school provided
 that such five or ten additional  days,  whichever  is  applicable,  are
 limited  to  the  following: the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
 after Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the  week  in  which  public
 schools  are  closed  for  spring recess, December twenty-fourth and the
 week between Christmas day and New Year's day, AND the Tuesday,  Wednes-
 day, Thursday and Friday after the observance of Washington's birthday[,
 and,  in  the  boroughs  of Brooklyn and Queens only, Anniversary Day as
 designated in section twenty-five hundred eighty-six of this chapter].
   § 4. This act shall take effect on the first of July  next  succeeding
 the date on which it shall have become a law.