Are you more patriotic than an APS board member?

At every school board meeting or committee meeting, there are tidbits that don’t make it into the newspaper, mostly because they aren’t that interesting, or they’re silly and not that important.

Here’s one of the latter: The APS policy committee met last night, and one of the things they discussed was the academic calendar for next school year. They are considering some changes, which I’m writing about for tomorrow’s paper. But that’s not the silly part. School board member Kathy Korte, who sits on the calendar committee and has been very involved in making the calendar, advocated for a calendar option that would keep students in school on Veteran’s Day. Veteran’s Day wasn’t a school holiday this year (and as I understand it, the holiday is actually Sunday, and some places observe it Monday).

So Kathy said this:

“I’ve had a few comments that we don’t honor veterans on Veteran’s Day. A former committee member told me the same thing, we can’t go around that. So maybe we, as a district, can do something on Veteran’s Day, encourage teachers to talk about what veterans have done, blah blah blah, just to kind of ease that bitter feel that some people have about us going to school on Veteran’s Day.”

Inelegant? Maybe. But I know what she means. We here at the Journal certainly didn’t have the day off. Neither did my partner, who works in databases. We don’t have kids, but if we did we’d have had to scramble for childcare. In fact, all my private-sector friends worked on Monday.

Nonetheless, board member David Robbins (who works in state government) had this to say, his voice rising a bit:

“My big concern, I mentioned it last year, schools are open on Veteran’s Day when we have parades honoring the veterans. And Kathy, I take a little bit of, I guess a second opinion that it’s not ‘blah blah.’ Veterans are people who gave up their lives to serve this country, many of whom died, and that’s what we have Memorial Day for. But we currently have over 2 million people serving this country, and we have about 20 or 30 million people who have served over the years who are still living, so it’s a very significant thing for many many people in this country.

And when the state and federal government take off and those activities are closed, but we remain open, I think, and we have a huge military base here in Albuquerque, the superintendent is an honorary commander I believe, out at the base, I think we do a disservice to an enormous portion of our community. And New Mexico strives, with veterans preference, with trying to attract military retirees to come to New Mexico –  for us to sit here and say we’re going to have the schools open and ‘Oh yeah, we’ll try to do something’ but it’s not really that significant because to us it’s just another day, I think that’s wrong. Keeping Veteran’s Day as a holiday is important.”

Whew. Still with me? Great.

Kathy responded by talking about all the choices and trade-offs involved in making a calendar, and said this about her patriotism credentials:

“These are all really, really difficult choices we have to make. Let me be clear, it’s not a knock on veterans. My dad is one of them.”

So, that’s what you missed when you decided not to attend the APS policy committee meeting last night. Oh, and this, which is actually pretty interesting. Have an opinion about whether Veteran’s Day should be a school holiday? APS is taking feedback through Thanksgiving. You can email them at boarded@aps.edu, and I’ll have more details about what they’re considering in tomorrow’s paper.