SANTA CRUZ (California) SENTINEL

July 27, 2006

P.V. students to attend school on Chavez holiday

By Donna Jones
Sentinel Staff Writer

WATSONVILLE — Pajaro Valley students will be in school on Cesar Chavez Day, but they'll be required to study the history of the agricultural labor movement and the contributions of the co-founder of the United Farm Workers on that day.

Pajaro Valley Unified School District board of trustees considered Wednesday giving students the day off March 30 to honor the co-founder of the United Farm Workers, a man many consider a civil rights hero.

But trustees decided keeping students in classes and mandating the lessons was a better idea.

"From my understanding — I didn't know the man — Chavez valued education,"

said Trustee Evelyn Volpa, saying she wouldn't support giving students a holiday. "Mr. Chavez would have wanted students to stay in school"

Volpa, along with Trustee Willie Yahiro, proposed making optional lessons about Chavez the rule in the school district in acknowledgment of the controversial nature of the labor leader locally. A proposal to name a high school after Chavez in 2001 created bitter divisions in the community. While many hail his work on behalf of farmworker rights, others recall strikes in Pajaro Valley fields during the 1970s.

"Not all of our kids are in that mode," Yahiro said of celebrating Chavez. "It may not apply to everybody in the north, south and central zones of the district at the same time."

But Trustee Doug Keegan said lessons needed to be mandatory, a position that won the support of trustees Rhea DeHart, Sandra Nichols and Karen Osmundson and President Sharon Gray.

"This is a historical person of some rank, particularly in this community," Keegan said.

State elected officials established March 31, or the closest Monday or Friday, as a state holiday honoring Chavez in 2000. But the law gave public schools the option of declaring a holiday. State education officials developed optional teaching materials for schools that stayed in session.

In 2007, the state will celebrate Cesar Chavez Day on March 30.

At least some Pajaro Valley schools already are celebrating the day. This year at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Watsonville, for example, students wrote essays about Chavez and the ones judged the best were posted on the school Web site. Students also received Popsicles and eighth-graders were treated to a barbecue.