Teachers Propose Chavez Holiday

Ventura County’s community college teachers are proposing a holiday to honor Cesar Chavez, the late farm-worker organizer who once lived in Oxnard.

Negotiators for the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers are asking Ventura County Community College District officials to designate March 29, 1996, as a holiday from classes.

“We have a chance to honor a person who is important not only to civil rights but to the state, Southern California and our community,” said Margaret Edwards, a Ventura College music instructor who is the union’s chief negotiator.

The union and the three-campus college district are negotiating the district’s calendar for the 1995-96 academic school year.

Edwards said because the state already has designated Sunday, March 31, 1996, as a day to honor Chavez, the district now has an opportunity to be one of the first local public agencies to follow suit.

“It would be the honorable thing to do, the appropriate thing to do and the ethical thing to do,” said Edwards, noting the district Tuesday honored Black History Month.

The potential holiday--March 29, 1996--is the Friday before the scheduled spring break.

Edwards pitched the holiday to trustees at the Tuesday night board meeting, but governing board members took no immediate action on the proposal. Negotiations for next year’s teachers’ union agreement are continuing.