Greensburg Salem's use of traditional school holiday names draws dissent

Tradition trumped inclusiveness this week as the Greensburg Salem School Board selected holiday names for use on the district’s 2022-23 school calendar.

The board voted 8-1 to use time-honored names for three holidays when students get to stay home: Christmas Break, Easter Break and Columbus Day.

The vote came after former board member Lynna Thomas asked school directors to stick with alternate holiday titles that had been proposed by district administrators: Holiday Break, Spring Break and Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

President Biden proclaimed the latter day on Oct. 11, the date many celebrated as Columbus Day.

Thomas suggested using the traditional holiday names “feels like a blatant disregard for some of the members of our community.”

She argued selecting the alternate names would “acknowledge that not every member of our community celebrates the same holidays.

“Since we know better, we should try to do better. Why not go with more general language?”

Thomas said she researched the wording other districts in Westmoreland County have used on their calendars and found that only two out of 16 were using Christmas, and two were using Columbus Day.

“Nobody says Easter,” she said.

If not Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Thomas suggested “Act 80 Day” — a day when teachers report to school but students stay home — would be preferable to marking the calendar date as Columbus Day.

“We know there are varying views in the community regarding recognition of this day,” she said. “We want every student here to feel like they’re part of our community.”

Lynn Jobe was the sole school director voting against a calendar version that includes the more traditional holiday names.

She argued that those names aren’t compatible “if we’re going to declare that we’re diverse and inclusive.”

Minutes from the Jan. 13, 2021 board meeting indicate all nine members, including Thomas and Jobe, voted to approve the district’s 2021-22 calendar. As posted on the district website, the calendar includes mention of Christmas Recess and Easter Recess.

“I believe, and I’ll stand by it, we should continue to call (holidays) what they are,” said board member Frank Gazze.

He pointed out that the timing of the district’s spring semester break is driven by the date when Easter falls.

“Our country is moving so far to not discriminate or tramp on anybody’s toes,” he said. “Our society is turning everything into a gray area.”

The school calendar version that was approved sets the first day of student instruction on Aug. 30 and the last day on June 6, 2023. The start date was moved back from an earlier version to accommodate students who want to participate in the Westmoreland Fair.

AI course excluded

The school board approved course selections for 2022-23 but excluded a proposed seventh-grade course, “Computer Science 2: Artificial Intelligence in Our World,” from offerings at the middle school.

Some board members said they were provided only a paragraph-length description of the course, which they said was not enough to reach a decision on approving it.

Other board members and two parents in the audience expressed concern that seventh graders won’t be prepared to tackle the subject matter, arguing it would better addressed at the high school level.

Superintendent Ken Bissell said the course, in part, would teach students about some of the dangers posed by artificial intelligence technologies and offer them an informed perspective for dealing with them. The course is part of a plan by district administrators to bridge a gap between STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects at district elementary schools and computer science courses at the high school.

Board members suggested revisiting the course at an upcoming committee meeting.