Every Ramadan, more US schools are embracing the needs of fasting Muslim students

(RNS) — On a Tuesday night at J.R. Tucker High School in Richmond, Virginia, parents and faculty guided students as they put final touches on simple tablescapes and two buffet tables. Last-minute stragglers carrying trays of food were directed to one of two tables: dates and other snacks to break the day’s Ramadan fast over here, bigger plates for dinner over there.

I walked in with a large tray of keema thahari, a rice and spiced ground beef dish, but minus my own son, a junior at a different school, who had chosen to stay home because he was feeling under the weather and wanted to conserve energy to finish his fast. Minutes later a student called the “adhan” (call to prayer) in the far side of the commons area, and students lined up to grab a date and some snacks and break their fast.

This was the second year Tucker High School hosted an iftar — the Arabic name for the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan. It is open to all Muslim and non-Muslims students at the high schools (many of which have high school Muslim associations) around Richmond. Deep Run High School, in Virginia’s Henrico County School District, has also hosted iftars to help local Muslim students build community and practice their faith comfortably in a public school setting.

Teachers, librarians and administrators at several Richmond-area schools have also been supportive, finding space for students to pray during the day, find each other during lunch periods and to perform their ‘Jummah” prayers on Fridays as the Muslim Sabbath approached.

Attendees fill plates during an iftar meal at J.R. Tucker High School in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Photo by Dilshad Ali)

Once upon a time, Richmond’s acknowledgement of Ramadan would be an anomaly. Today it is part of a widespread effort in school districts across the country to build inclusivity and recognize diversity. It’s all the more remarkable given that diversity, equity and inclusion programs have been in the crosshairs of the current Trump administration. 

It’s impossible to say how widespread these sorts of efforts are in the U.S. However, it’s clear that every year more and more individual schools and school districts are accommodating Muslim students, making it easier to fast within the structure of the school day and fostering an atmosphere where students can be their Muslim selves without disrupting the flow of the school day.

The Fairfax County Public School District, close to Washington in northern Virginia, took up a new program made possible by the Virginia Department of Education, offering meal kits for students who are fasting, containing a protein, fruit, vegetables, low-fat milk and whole grains to be picked up at the end of the school day and eaten as soon as the fast is over at sunset.

St. Paul Public Schools in Minnesota, San Diego Unified School District and the Garden Grove Unified School District in California provide similar meals. In their email to families, Garden Grove school officials wrote that their goal was to ensure that “students can observe their religious practices while still having access to nutritious meals after their period of fasting ends.”

On the East Coast, on the same night as the iftar event at Tucker High School, my niece pitched in to facilitate the first-ever iftar at her private school, the Barrie School, in Glenmont, Maryland. The purpose? To educate and inform her fellow classmates, teachers and school administrators about Ramadan, fasting and what it’s like to be a Muslim student on campus.

In nearly every case, the motivators of these effects have been dedicated students advocating for themselves or a Muslim  teacher making sure students are accommodated. In Richmond, Tucker art teacher Javaria Masroor has been instrumental in creating safe spaces for Muslim students, including an influx of Afghan refugees at the school.

“Mrs. Masroor was instrumental in getting our MSA (Muslim Student Association) going,” Nazifa Chowdhury, a senior at Tucker, told me recently. “We’re the first class to graduate with all four years of MSA,” she said.

People prepare for an iftar at J.R. Tucker High School in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Photo by Dilshad Ali)

School administrators allow fasting students to hang out in their library during lunch periods and, under Mrs. Masroor’s guidance, dedicated a small room where students can go for daily prayers between classes and assemble in small groups to perform Friday prayers together. “Mrs. Masroor has specifically opened up safe spaces for us to have conversations,” Chowdhury said.

Simal Imran, another Tucker senior, said a smart board in the library has featured Ramadan facts this month, and in what was a pleasant surprise to the students, another smart board seen by all students in the main entrance of the school also has featured interesting facts about Muslims and Ramadan.

I have known Masroor for years. Our kids have grown up around each other at various school, community, religious and cultural events in and around the Richmond area. She is fiercely dedicated to the educational and mental wellbeing of all her students. Students in her classes — and some she doesn’t teach — congregate in her classroom during their lunch periods. “I really want my students to feel safe and empowered to be themselves, to be who they are, whether they are Muslim or not,” she told me. 

She credits fellow teachers, administrators and Tucker’s principal, Art Raymond, for encouraging her efforts to create the prayer spaces and educate all students about Ramadan in ways that don’t proselytize or distract from the school day.

With the Trump administration’s anti-DEI crackdown in the federal government and by extension other areas of public life, schools that embrace Ramadan are doing something brave. Public universities around the country have dismantled DEI programs under threat of losing federal funding, and according to the latest reports, 52 universities in 41 states are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for using “racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities.”  

Muslim Americans and other minority groups, meanwhile, are feeling uncertainty as several administration executive orders and policies have targeted immigration, DEI and pro-Palestinian student activists. In such times, stories of iftar events and school districts accommodating fasting students are a balm to the soul.

The strength of this country and of public schools comes in empowering students to live authentic lives in a way that is pluralistically respectful, Masroor said. “If my students are comfortable in their own skin in a school setting, it opens them up to really learn from each other and their teachers and to prioritize their education,” she said. 

As I sat in the commons at Tucker and spoke with students, they had me thinking back to my high school days in North Dakota, when I tended to keep the Muslim parts of me on the down low (though it was fairly obvious my family was different). I told the Tucker students how Ramadan, fasting and what it all means was rarely discussed at my school. Even though I fasted, asking for a prayer space did not occur to me. Instead, I made up for my missed prayers after I got home. 

“It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know about Ramadan now,” Imran told me, explaining how her friends encourage her when she is tired at track practice or during weight training. “If they see me struggling, they’ll say, ‘Only one more hour to go!’ and cheer me on.”

Imagine that.