District plans to hold classes on King holiday

DESOTO, Mo. -- An eastern Missouri school district still plans to hold classes on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, despite a protest being organized by a pastor.

Sunrise School District has about 350 students in kindergarten through eighth grade in southern Jefferson County, about 90 miles northwest of CapeGirardeau. The classes planned for next Monday were scheduled to make up for a snow day from earlier this school year.

The Rev. Lee Clayton Goodman, pastor of Buren Chapel A.M.E., has asked the school board to call an emergency meeting and cancel classes that day out of respect for the slain civil rights leader. The next scheduled school board meeting isn't until Jan. 28, eight days after the holiday.

Rick Pica, president of the school board, said it was too late for an emergency meeting, and classes will go on as scheduled.

Holding classes on Monday "will give us not only an opportunity to talk about Martin Luther King, but to discuss the First Amendment," Pica said. "We embrace diversity."

Both Pica and superintendent Timothy La Bruyere said the district will likely change its policy next year to ensure that the holiday is observed, though both men said they've received only a handful of complaints -- and all of them from outside the district.

To help raise opposition to Sunrise's scheduling decision, Goodman called a news conference, scheduled for 4 p.m. today at Ward Chapel A.M.E. of Festus. He also announced that a march to Sunrise School was planned for 11 a.m. Monday if school is in session.

Pica said there were several reasons the snow day was being made up in January. Students concentrate better right after the holiday break, rather than tacking on the extra day at the end of the school year when their minds tend to wander, he said.

Also, Pica noted that many parents don't get the holiday off, meaning they would have to arrange care for their children.