A school board in New Jersey is facing backlash after they voted to remove the names of holidays from the academic calendar. The Randolph Township School Board said that instead of listing the names of religious and national holidays, the calendar will simply list them as a day off.

The decision was made after the board was criticized for renaming Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day.

After the board's vote, a petition was started by Randolph resident Tom Tatum calling on the board members and Superintendent Jen Fano to resign.

"Jen Fano and all of the Board of Education Members have disgraced our community and clearly do not have the best interests of our children in anything they do. They represent everything that is wrong in education today and are completely incompetent in every aspect of their role," the change.org petition states.

As of Monday (June 14) morning, the petition was more than halfway to its goal of 5,000 signatures.

Members of the school board defended their vote.

"If we don't have anything on the calendar, we don't have to have anyone [with] hurt feelings or anything like that," board member Dorene Roche told WNYW.

Randolph Township Schools Director of Communications and Digital Media, Matthew Pfouts, told Fox News that the district also supports the decision to remove holiday names from the calendar and said it will have no effect on the school's curriculum.

"We agreed unanimously that the change would be both inclusive and equitable," he said. "Although we have made these changes to the school district's calendar, our decision to change the calendar titles will not impact the education of holidays as guided by the district's curriculum."

Weather

Current Weather