SCHOOLS STICK WITH SECULAR MONTGOMERY SCHOOL BOARD OPTS AGAINST NAME CHANGE

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993                   TAG: 9304070303
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOLS STICK WITH SECULAR MONTGOMERY SCHOOL BOARD OPTS AGAINST NAME CHANGE
"Winter break" and "spring break" will stay on the Montgomery County School calendar.
The School Board voted 7-2 Tuesday night to stick with the secular holiday names they have used for many years rather than revert to the use of "Christmas" and "Easter" as some residents had asked.
In making the decision, the board accepted the recommendation of a calendar committee made up of teachers and other school employees and of Superintendent Harold Dodge.
Some people in the audience of 100 were deeply disappointed.
Standing by the doors at the back of the Blacksburg High School auditorium, Lynn Linkous of Christiansburg hollered "OK, fine" right after the vote. "But when November comes," she yelled, "we will vote you out because we have enough signatures. The majority will be heard."
Linkous, a supporter of religious holiday names, is one of the organizers of a petition drive to get a referendum for an elected School Board on the county ballot this fall. She said the holiday-names issue was the springboard for the petition drive.
"We're not being heard," she said outside the auditorium. "It's time we vote for these people; it's time they answer to us."
School Board Members Barry Worth of Christiansburg and Rebecca Raines of Shawsville proposed a compromise, asking the board to approve calling the holidays "Christmas and winter break" and "Easter and spring break." They were the only board members to vote for it and, subsequently, to oppose leaving the holiday names in their secular form.
Along with the calendar, the School Board also approved Dodge's suggestion to send home with students a separate list of the nation's major religious and civil holidays as an educational gesture.
Many of the board members felt compelled to explain why they were voting the way the were.
Raines said the reason she felt she couldn't vote for the calendar with the secular names is that her young daughter, who has been following the controversy, asked her, "Will I get in trouble at school if I mention Christmas and Easter."
Board Member Annette Perkins of Blacksburg said her decision to vote to keep the calendar with the secular names came from her 30 years as a government teacher and "her deep religious faith."
"Loving God and my beliefs is a very private thing I treasure," she said. "I don't want anything to interfere with that and I don't want to interfere with anything in anybody else's life that's that important."
The controversy surrounding the holiday names developed in December after a news story about a similar dispute in Frederick County pointed out Montgomery County's use of the secular names.
A crowd of 300 people asking for a return to religious names packed a December meeting of the county Board of Supervisors. That prompted the supervisors to pass a resolution in support of the school system's going back to the religious holiday names.
This winter, the Virginia General Assembly also passed a resolution in support of the religious holiday names, at the urging of a Frederick County legislator.
The board's resolution, in part, led to the resignation of School Board Chairman Daniel Schneck of Christiansburg.
At the School Board's first meeting in January, 900 people nearly filled the auditorium at Christiansburg High School to hear people speak on both sides of the holiday issue. Tuesday night was the fourth month in a row that several people spoke on the issue.
Evelyn Long told the board that if the religious names of the holidays were good enough for America's forefathers, they should be good enough now.
John LeDoux of Blacksburg asked the board why citizens were not included on the school system's calendar committee. LeDoux, who was speaking for himself and not in his role as chairman of the county chapter of the Christian Coalition, said all the holiday names should be included on the calendar and not a separate sheet of paper.
Golde Holtzman of Blacksburg said the controversy has proven a positive experience for some involved. People on each side of the issue have learned much from each other, he said.
The opponents have many common objectives, Holtzman said: that their children learn the basics in school, that they learn about religion but are not indoctrinated and that they learn values.
The Rev. Ray Allen, a Baptist minister from Blacksburg, spoke in favor of staying with the secular names.
Allen recalled a recent trip to Hungary. He was surprised to find, on the wall of the office of the president of the Baptist convention there, a copy of the Virginia charter, the first document to guarantee religious freedom.
"My job is to preach the Gospel," Allen said. "Your concerns as a government," he told the board, "must be that that the minorities of this country are protected and respected, even if that's one child."
writer Rob Freis contributed to this story.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB