On March 9, the entire New York City Congressional Delegation – led by U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Queens) – sent a letter to Mayor de Blasio expressing concern over the lack of progress in creating a school holiday for Lunar New Year.

“We strongly support the commitment you made one year ago, to incorporate Asian Lunar New Year, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to the New York City Department of Education school holiday calendar,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are pleased to see that the school calendar for 2015-2016 does indeed include Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as school holidays. However, we are puzzled and concerned over the absence of Asian Lunar New Year from next year's calendar. We sincerely hope you understand the community’s frustration that students must now wait another year to celebrate with their families or face potential academic consequences of missing school.”

The text of the letter is below and a PDF of the correspondence can be found here.

Signatories – in addition to Meng – include Reps. Joseph Crowley, Steve Israel, Carolyn Maloney, Jerrold Nadler, Jose Serrano, Yvette Clarke, Eliot Engel, Hakeem Jeffries, Gregory Meeks, Charles Rangel and Nydia Velazquez.

The new law requiring New York City to consider closing schools for Lunar New Year, as well as Eid al-Adha, Eid al-Fitr and Diwali, was a measure Meng sponsored when she served in the New York State Assembly.

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March 9, 2015

Mayor Bill de Blasio

City Hall

New York, NY 10007

Dear Mayor de Blasio:

We strongly support the commitment you made one year ago, to incorporate Asian Lunar New Year, Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to the New York City Department of Education school holiday calendar. We are pleased to see that the school calendar for 2015-2016 does indeed include Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as school holidays. However, we are puzzled and concerned over the absence of Asian Lunar New Year from next year's calendar.

As you know, Asian Lunar New Year is the most important holiday of the year for most of the Asian-American community, and Asian-American students should not be forced to choose between celebrating with family or missing school. Students of many other cultures and ethnicities rightly have off for the most important holidays they observe, and kids who celebrate Lunar New Year should be afforded the same. In New York City, one in six students is Asian-American.

We sincerely hope you understand the community’s frustration that students must now wait another year to celebrate with their families or face potential academic consequences of missing school. We are happy to work with you to resolve any outstanding barriers to implementing an Asian Lunar New Year school holiday for the 2016-2017 New York City Department of Education school holiday calendar.

Sincerely,