By scheduling mid-year exams on Lunar New Year’s Day, some New York public high schools have incensed the Chinese community. On Jan. 13, under pressure from the community, Joel Klein, chancellor of the NYC Department of Education (DOE), sent letters to school principals asking them to rearrange exam dates for students who’d like to celebrate on that day.

Bronx Science, Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech high schools—schools with a strong Asian-American student presence—along with other high schools, scheduled some mid-year exams on Jan. 22, which overlaps with Lunar New Year’s Day, the most important holiday for many Asian ethnics. As the day approaches, more and more Chinese parents complained to education advocates and elected officials.

“In the past two days we received at least a dozen complaints from parents,” said Teresa Hsu, the executive director of Asian American Communication (AAC), an education advocacy organization in Chinatown.

A parent, who insisted on anonymity due to her prominence in the legal field, is outraged by her daughter’s school’s decision to arrange exams on the Lunar New Year. She exclaims, “I can’t imagine that when Chinese people all over the world are celebrating the New Year, my daughter has to sit in the classroom and take an exam.”

John Liu, a councilman from Flushing who originated the bill to suspend alternate side parking on the Lunar New Year to show respect for the Asian holiday, also criticized the DOE’s negligence. According to Liu, this is not the first time education administrators scheduled exams on the Lunar New Year. Two years ago, the state Department of Education arranged the regents for that day. Given the complaints from the Asian community, the department had promised to review exam dates beforehand to avoid this in the future. But the city Department of Education (DOE) made the same mistake again. “We understand the law requires a certain number of school days per semester. We know it would be hard to ask the schools to close in observance of the Lunar New Year,” said Liu. “But, at least, there shouldn’t be exams on that day. This is basic respect for Asian tradition.”

AAC’s Hsu and Robert Jackson, a Manhattan councilman who is half Chinese, attended a monthly hearing of the DOE to complain directly to the chancellor.

DOE spokesperson Paul Rose said yesterday that the department will send letters to school principals asking them be aware of the Lunar New Year and to rearrange exam dates for students who’d like to celebrate the holiday. Rose explained that mid-year exam dates are set by individual schools, not by the DOE. Although all the schools will have to finish the exams before the end of January, there are only a handful of schools that arranged exams for the 22nd. Rose said the DOE would review the exam dates in the future to comply with religious and ethnic holidays. But since the date is approaching, it’s hard to ask the schools to change the exam dates in such a short period. Rose said Asian students who want to celebrate on the Lunar New Year should register with the school’s Parent Coordinator, so the exam date can be changed for them.

However, Hsu thinks it is not a good idea to ask schools to rearrange exam dates for Asian students, pointing out that by doing so, schools have the extra burden to create different exams; this may trigger a backlash against Asian students. “The students don’t want to be singled out,” said Hsu.