Students at Montgomery County in Maryland would still have no classes during the yearend holidays. However, the school district would soon call that vacation time winter break instead of Christmas break. The change is part of the growing trend among Maryland school districts to be politically correct and not appear to favor certain religions by naming breaks after religious holidays.

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The school board, which voted on the change on Tuesday, is not the first to attempt political correctness. The Baltimore City Public Schools district in the same state had previously removed religious holiday names from its list of school breaks.

The change will take effect in 2015, which means this year's Yuletide holiday would still be called Christmas break instead of winter break. Under the new policy, Easter break would be called spring break. However, the students would still get the same days off as the new policy only implemented name change.

Similarly affected by the new policy are the Jewish feast Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. The change was made even as the local Muslim community wanted the Islam holiday Eid al-Adha to be recognized as a holiday.

They protested the move as unequal treatment even if Muslim students are excused from school on that day, which subsequently allows them to have the opportunity to celebrate the feast with their community and family. In a statement on the Equality for Eid Coalition website, the group said that young Islam followers are either absent from class or skip marking the holiday. This is not the same situation for Jewish or Christian students because despite their faith's holiday being given a new name, it still is a no-class day for them.

The situation appears to still be unequal for Muslim students, said nine-year-old Mussa Siddique, who told WBFF, a CNN affiliate, "Sometimes I don't like it because everybody gets their days off and whenever I have celebrations I don't get off."

School District Superintendent Joshua Starr explained that because of the large number of employees and students who are Jewish or Christians, schools would remain close on selected holidays celebrated by their religions to avert high rate of absenteeism among adherents of the two religions, Fox reports.

However, in the case of the Islam holiday Eid al-Adha, absenteeism rate was only slightly higher than a regular school day--an indicator that there are fewer Muslim students and staff in the county compared with Jews and Christians.

Saqib Ali, co-chairman of the coalition, said removing the names of the Christian and Jewish holidays from the school calendar only alienated members of these religions, but did not move the school district closer to equality.

Devon Jones, a Montgomery County student, said that in attempting to be politically correct, the school district would still offend people because religion is "the glue that keeps our society together," regardless if a person is religious or not.

Montgomery school district board member Rebecca Smondrowski defended their decision since it is the "most equitable option" for now.

Tagsmontgomery county, school district, school holiday, christmas, yom kippur, Eid Al-Adha