Chesterfield, VA Students to report to school on MLK Day

[CrimsonTide4]

IN SCHOOL ON KING DAY? Chesterfield, VA students will not observe the holiday.

(Dec. 16, 2002) *The NAACP and ACLU have begun protests against the Chesterfield, Virginia County Schools because the school district will require students to make up a snow day on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
“I think for many it will be suspicious that the first holiday to be sacrificed to make up for inclement weather is Martin Luther King Day,” said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia ACLU.

But the Chesterfield County School Superintendent, Billy Cannady, Jr., who is black, says that there is another way to view the situation.

“It reinforces for me, as an African-American, Dr. King’s strong belief in education as an equalizer,” Cannady said.

Virginia’s graduation laws require schools to make up snow days before testing periods begin in the spring. According to Cannady, January 20 is the first available date after the Christmas vacation.

But, Chesterfield is not exactly a model of racial tolerance. Earlier this year, its Board of Supervisors passed a measure to name April as Confederate History and Heritage Month. And in September, the white supremacist group, World Church of the Creator, held a meeting at a Chesterfield library.