Levittown school district removes holiday references on calendar

The Levittown school district announced on its website Wednesday that it would no longer reference specific holidays on its printed school calendar.

Levittown Public Schools Superintendent Tonie McDonald said in a statement that “due to the number of holidays celebrated and the fact that our schools are closed on some and open on others, it was decided to eliminate all references to holidays” on the calendar.

“In making this decision, we were also mindful of the risk of accidentally omitting any holidays,” McDonald said in the statement.

The printed calendars will instead just note days when schools are closed. All holidays will still be listed in the online version of the calendar, according to McDonald.

Levittown’s not alone in wanting to omit holidays from its calendar. Southampton school officials printed a 2016-2017 calendar that omitted holiday names, but the district decided recently to restore the names of holidays for 2017-2018 calendar, a district spokeswoman said. The debate in Southampton initially focused on Columbus Day, because they said Christopher Columbus and Europeans led directly and indirectly to the deaths of thousands of Native Americans, and some did not want to honor him.

McDonald received two complaints about the change via email, a spokesman said.

The announcement also sparked concern from some on social media, with many saying the change was an attempt to be too politically correct.

“I guess the PC police stopped by and said don’t offend the babies,” a user posted to Twitter, along with a screenshot of the district’s memo.

“So now that most statues will be taken down, people are finding offense in what the closed days on a school calendar are!!??” a Facebook user wrote, referencing the debate over Confederate monuments.

But McDonald said that they’re “mistaken” in thinking the decision was made in an effort to be politically correct, or in response to recent events.

“The decision was made in June at a public board meeting,” she said in an email, adding that eliminating the holidays also provides more space on the calendar for school events. “That is the only reason the decision was made.”