Long Island School District To Reprint Calendar Due To Community Backlash

The Levittown School District announced on Friday that it would reprint its 2017-18 school calendar after the community responded swiftly and harshly to the fact that the names of holidays were purposefully omitted.

In a statement sent out early Friday afternoon, district superintendent Dr. Tonie McDonald said that the district would reprint the calendar, with the addition of holidays, and make it available at all school buildings to any resident who wished to pick one up.

"Please understand that it was never our intention to upset or offend anyone with this change," McDonald said. "If this modification has impacted you in any way, we apologize. As a district, our responsibility is to keep residents informed of school schedules and events and the printed calendar is the tool in which this is done. Our goal was to create an operationally efficient and user-friendly educational resource for our community. Therefore, we created, in addition to the printed calendar, a comprehensive, user-friendly online calendar to be used by our residents."

Watch: Long Island School District Removes Holiday Names From Calendar, Some Parents Outraged

Many Levittown residents took to Facebook and other social media platforms to voice their displeasure — or worse — with the district's decision. Many of those who were against it said it was another example of political correctness run amok.

But the district said it was never trying to be politically correct, and that there was no hidden agenda in removing the names of holidays from the printed calendar (they were still in the district's online calendar).

"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 and simply indicate the days schools are closed in the printed calendar," the district said earlier this week.

The decision to remove the holidays from the calendar was not arbitrary: it was discussed publicly at a Board of Education meeting in June and voted on by the board at the same meeting.

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