NJ school district to consider adding holiday names back to calendar

Columbus Day tensions in New Jersey

The controversy over Columbus Day has become a major point of contention in Randolph, New Jersey. The debate has gotten so heated that the town's Board of Education is now deciding to remove the name of all holidays on the school calendar.

NEW JERSEY - In what would be yet another reversal, a New Jersey school district will consider adding holiday names back onto the district calendar.

After an outcry at a raucous public meeting over a previous decision to rename Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day, the Randolph Township Board of Education last week decided to strip all holiday names off of the school calendar.

So holidays like Thanksgiving would not be on the calendar and would simply be called "day off".

Now, the board is holding a special meeting to consider rescinding the vote.

The new vote is planned for a special meeting on Monday, June 21, 2021, at 5:30 p.m. at the town's middle school auditorium.

The new resolution would return the district calendar to the way it existed prior to the May 13, 2021 board meeting with the addition of all New Jersey state and federal holidays.

"If we don't have anything on the calendar, we don't have to have anyone be hurt feelings or anything like that," board member Dorene Roche said at the meeting where it was decided to remove the names.

The board members made the move in an effort to not offend anyone who feels slighted by days that reference a person, holiday, or ethnic group.

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"I don't think really it is the board's responsibility to be naming these holidays. Either take them off or just adopt whatever the federal and state governments are doing," board member Ronald Conti said before the vote.

More than 100 people reportedly had attended the Randolph Board of Education meeting to protest the board changing the name of the Columbus Day Holiday.

It turned into a long public comment period and discussion by the board before the suggestion to strip names off the calendar.

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After the unanimous vote, the board was met with shouts from the crowd.

"What did you just do? What just happened?" one man was heard shouting in an audio recording of the meeting.

Randolph Township is in Morris County and is about an hour west of New York City.

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