Local News in Brief : Sun Valley Parents Assail Break Timing
A group of parents angry that spring vacation this year begins two weeks after Easter Sunday staged protests against the Los Angeles Unified School District at a Sun Valley elementary school.
“We as Christians are fighting the change,” said John Barnwell, a parent who organized the protest at Vinedale Elementary School. “Most people who believe in God believe that this is the most important week in Christian history.”
In previous years, the weeklong vacation preceded Easter Sunday.
Barnwell and a dozen other parents and children carried signs and passed out literature urging parents to keep their children home during Easter week, which begins Sunday. Vacation for the district’s 592,000 students begins April 10.
The school board, in an agreement reached with the Los Angeles teachers union last year, scheduled spring vacation to begin halfway through the 20-week semester. Easter falls on a Sunday within a 35-day period between March 22 and April 25 each year.
“We believe that is most educationally sound,” Don Schrack, a spokesman for the United Teachers-Los Angeles, said of the schedule change.
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