The Madison County School Board approves changing “winter vacation” to “Christmas vacation.”

In March, Mike Sharman of Madison County made a comment suggesting changing “winter break” to “Christmas break.” The board then proposed making this change in the draft 2024-25 school calendar.

“Christmas is a cultural thing in our community,” board member Christopher Wingate said. “I support the idea.”

Sharman also suggested changing “spring break” to “Easter break”. However, Easter in 2025 is late, not until April 20, almost three weeks after spring break. Instead, board members proposed adding Good Friday, April 18, as a holiday. But School Superintendent Anna Graham said adding another holiday could cause problems with the calendar because school divisions are required to spend a certain number of days or hours in school. The draft calendar without Good Friday as a holiday includes 178 teaching days. Several snow days are built in.

Wingate and board members Nita Collier, Greg Martz and Charlie Sheads supported the idea of ​​changing “winter break” to “Christmas break” and asked that it be included in the draft calendar.

As in previous years, the draft calendar was posted on the school division's website for public comment. Although the comments were only briefly mentioned during the April school board meeting and were not available to the public before the meeting or attached to the agenda, 157 people responded. Of these, 58 rejected the change from “winter break” to “Christmas break”. Thirty-seven supported it.

One said they could choose either option, and several asked for a break in March. The addition of the Good Friday holiday was also seen as a positive by some.

During the meeting, Sharman reiterated his support for the changes. Noting that the country is “one nation under God,” he said Christmas is actually celebrated for much longer than one day, with stores delivering Christmas items in the fall and Hallmark being the top channel in November and December due to its selection of Christmas movies be .

Pastor Russell Biber agreed, stating that Christian holidays represent the majority of people and that while he does not disagree with a person's right to celebrate as they please, he does not want to create a godless society.

Parent Devlyn D'Alfonzo disagreed. She said she was not anti-religious, but a state-enforced anti-religionist, and that the winter holidays included all residents, while the Christmas holidays ignored the many other religious holidays that take place in the winter.

“I suspect it would be offensive for you to celebrate the Kwanzaa holiday since you do not celebrate the holiday,” she said.

D'Alfonzo said public, state-funded school divisions cannot favor one religion over another and that both legal precedent and basic human decency do not support the change.

“Put aside your personal theology and focus on the diversity of students who rely on you,” she said.

Christina Barden agreed. She said the board is there to meet the educational needs of students and that not all students celebrate Christmas.

“Everyone deserves to feel included by their public school board,” she said.

Carol Shirley said that while Christmas is the most important holiday of the holiday season, the renaming would further leave out those who don't celebrate it. She said changing the name will not help the children with their schoolwork or make them want to go to school. Instead, it would make them feel even more isolated, she said.

Wingate said the change was not based on personal beliefs but rather on state law. He said the state recognizes 12 public holidays and if people don't like that, they should remove Christmas and Thanksgiving from that list. He said that not calling it the Christmas holiday would be discrimination against those who celebrate it.

Martz said Prince William County, one of the most diverse school districts in the state, if not the country, has numerous religious holidays on its calendar, including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

“This is not an uncommon practice,” he said. “The works in the calendar reflect the composition of the community.”

The calendar was approved 5-0.