Mass. School District Marks Muslim Holiday

Cambridge public school students have a day off this week, but it has nothing to do with power outages or snow.

The Cambridge school system is believed to be the first in Massachusetts to give all students a day off for a Muslim holiday.

Students got Monday off for Eid al-Adha, also known as the Festival of Sacrifice.

The day off was approved by the school committee last year because of the district's sizable Muslim population.

School committee member Nancy Tauber says she and her colleagues received some hate mail from across the country when they decided to observe the holiday.

"And then it makes you think that it's probably an important thing for us to do because, how else are we going to erase the hate if we don't talk about the issues?" Tauber said.

With reporting by The Associated Press and the WBUR Newsroom