BREAKS LIKELY TO STAY `SPRING' AND `WINTER'

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 3, 1993                   TAG: 9304030062
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
BREAKS LIKELY TO STAY `SPRING' AND `WINTER'
It will stay "spring break" and "winter break" on the school calendar in Montgomery County if the School Board follows the recommendation of Superintendent Harold Dodge.
Dodge is basing his recommendation for the naming of holidays on the deliberations of a calendar committee, which includes school system employees.
The superintendent also is recommending that the school system send home with each pupil a separate listing of the major religious and civil holidays in the United States as compiled by the Educational Research Service.
Dodge will make his recommendations to the School Board at its Tuesday night meeting at Blacksburg High School.
The naming of school holidays erupted into controversy in December when 300 people showed up at a Board of Supervisors meeting to protest the use of "winter" and "spring" rather than the traditional religious names "Christmas" and "Easter."
The school system has used the term "winter break" for five years and "spring break" for 10 years. But news stories about a similar holiday-naming controversy in Frederick County drew the attention of several conservative church groups and other citizens to the issue in Montgomery County.
At the School Board's first meeting in January, about 900 citizens came to Christiansburg High School's auditorium to hear citizens argue both sides of the holiday-naming issue.
Both the Board of Supervisors and the Virginia General Assembly have passed resolutions supporting the use of religious holiday names on school calendars.
The school system's calendar committee considered those resolutions, comments in the media and the comments of speakers at School Board meetings over the past three months in its deliberations, Dodge said.
Although members of the committee were divided in their opinions, they unanimously endorsed the calendar containing "winter" and "spring" break, Dodge said.
The superintendent said it's important to remember that every school in the county was represented on the calendar committee and all types of employees, not just teachers.
It was Dodge's recommendation that the listing of holidays be sent home with students as a supplement to the calendar as a way of increasing awareness and sensitivity. The committee agreed with the suggestion, Dodge said.
John LeDoux of Blacksburg, chairman of the Montgomery County chapter of the Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, said the listing of the holidays was essentially a suggestion he made to the School Board in a letter. It's the least the schools could do to recognize people's concerns about eliminating the reference to religious holidays from the calendar, he said.
LeDoux has spoken in support of returning to the use of the traditional Christian names on the calendar.
The only outcome that he can see from Dodge's recommendation in regard to keeping "winter break" and "spring break" on the calendar is that it might add impetus to a petition drive for an elected school board referendum in the county, LeDoux said.
Nancy Alexander, a member of the coordinating board for the Coalition for Community, said Friday that Dodge's recommendation "is a wonderful affirmation of what the School Board has done for some years past. I hope the board will support him and keep it as it is."
The recently founded coalition has been vocal about maintaining the non-religious names.
Alexander also said she thought sending home a list of holidays was a good idea.
"A lot of us have no concept of how many different holidays there are for different beliefs and faiths."
In other matters related to the school calendar:

Dodge will recommend that the board approve his plan for making up the two days missed for bad weather this year in excess of the five snow days that already were built into the calendar.
Dodge wants to ask the state Department of Education to allow the county credit for time county students go to school in excess of the state standard. Under the plan, any additional missed days this year would require making the school day longer to compensate.

The School Board will consider a letter from state Superintendent of Education Joseph Spagnolo, who is suggesting that school systems start their 1994-95 school year on Sept. 8 out of consideration for Jewish students, who will be celebrating Rosh Hashanah on Sept. 6-7, 1994. Labor Day 1994 is Sept. 5.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB