What's in a Name? Southampton School District Calendar Debate Rears Its Head, Once Again

The Southampton Board of Education approved a proposed version of the 2023-24 school calendar that names the holidays that the district is closed, as opposed to marking them simply as “no school” — but only after a discussion that mirrored similar conversations in the past.

“I mean, I don’t know if I want to open a can of worms,” board member Donald King said during a Board of Education meeting on February 7. “I thought we had agreed prior to COVID that we would always go with the generic calendar.”

For the 2017-18 school year, the date of the holiday traditionally observed as Columbus Day — and, more recently, as Indigenous Peoples Day — was marked as “no school,” and “schools closed” the year before that, for reasons of cultural sensitivity. But in 2019, the Southampton Board of Education voted in favor of renaming it “Indigenous Peoples Day/Italian Heritage Day” on the next year’s calendar, following lengthy debate and impassioned public comments.

At the time, board members struggled to decide, but ultimately voted, 4-3, to approve the name change. Board members King, SunHe Sherwood-Dudley, Anastasia Gavalas and Roberta Hunter voted in favor of the measure, while Jacqueline Robinson, Michael Medio and James McKenna were opposed.

Earlier this month, King was the sole voice of opposition.

“Who else are we gonna alienate or annoy because we didn’t include their holiday? That bothers me,” he said. “I don’t know if anyone is going to object, and I’d love to see my Christian holidays on it, but have we included all of the religious holidays in our district? I don’t know. Ramadan is coming up, there’s no mention on the calendar of Ramadan, and I do have friends who practice.”

Cara Conklin-Wingfield, who is new to the board, pointed out that the calendar is acknowledging the days that the district is closed and why — and emphasized that the push to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day was initially a movement by students and “very important.”

Fellow newcomer Germain Smith, who is a member of the Shinnecock Nation, agreed.

“I believe that it should be on the calendar, it should be recognized,” he said. “As a Native person, we’ve gone several years without being recognized, and I think it’s a slap in the face to have a blank day on the calendar, a generic calendar.”

McKenna said that while he understood the “blanched calendar,” he was now in support of naming the holidays — despite his position in 2019.

“I’m conflicted on this one tonight,” he said. “I think I said this the last time: I don’t want to be Solomon — I can’t cut the baby in half, I can’t make everybody happy, and I will stand by my belief that somebody doesn’t win when somebody else loses.”

Additionally, marking the holidays — particularly “Indigenous Peoples Day/Italian Heritage Day” — aligns with the district’s recent commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, he said.

“While it doesn’t seem like much, putting a stamp on the calendar with both of them strikes me as maybe being the right thing to do now,” he said. “I don’t want to have 200 people here telling me I made a wrong decision. I think it’s fair if both names are on the calendar, and I would approve that.”

The marked calendar passed, 5-1, with the dissenting vote coming from King and an absence by Robinson, though Gonzales approved it with “the hope that we keep improving it and being more inclusive,” she said.

“I would love a calendar that represents our community, our student body, and our student body continues to grow as far as the diversity’s concerned,” said Sherwood-Dudley, who now serves as the board president. “It’s not just about the Latin community, the white community, the Native American, Black community. We do continue growing in our diversity. So I would like to see a calendar that continues to adopt as our as our community does. I don’t know that it does represent everybody right now.”