Quincy school committee votes against making Lunar New Year a school holiday

The Quincy School Committee narrowly voted against a proposal to make Lunar New Year an official school holiday next year. This month's vote was the third time the group has rejected the idea since May 2023.

Nearly 40% of students in Quincy identify as Asian American, according to state data.

On this year's Lunar New Year, Jan. 29, nearly 19% of the students at Quincy High School and over half the student body at North Quincy High School stayed home, according to data provided by the Quincy School Committee clerk. Citywide, over 20% of students missed school that day, with more than half reporting the cultural holiday as a reason.

"We are elected to advocate for and represent the students in our schools," Courtney Perdios, the school committee member who introduced the proposal, said in an emailed statement to WBUR. "I will continue to be a voice in support of having Lunar New Year as a day off in our school calendar."

Currently, students who celebrate the holiday and miss school are allowed an excused absence. But proponents have long argued that designating the occasion as a holiday on the Quincy school calendar — even if it occurs during a school vacation week, as next year’s will — would acknowledge its significance to the school community.

Lunar New Yearmarks the new year on the lunisolar calendar and is celebrated in many East Asian and Southeast Asian cultures with family gatherings and cultural traditions. It usually falls between late January and mid-February.

Several districts in Massachusetts, including Lexington, Brookline and Acton-Boxborough, close school for Lunar New Year.

Other large districts around the country have designated Lunar New Year as an official school holiday, including Philadelphia and San Francisco. New York became the first state to make the day a statewide public school holiday, starting this school year.

The most recent proposal in Quincy failed in a 4-3 vote: committee members Emily Lebo, Tina Cahill, Paul Bregoli and Kathryn Hubley voted against, while Perdios, Douglas Gutro and Committee Chair and Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch voted for it.

In April 2024, the school committee approved the calendar without Lunar New Year as an official school holiday. Later that month, the Quincy City Council voted to establish Lunar New Year as a legal municipal holiday — and therefore a school holiday.

But the school committee hired lawyers, according to the Patriot-Ledger. Last June, those lawyers issued a public opinion that the council overstepped the school committee's "exclusive authority to determine the QPS school calendar." It served to effectively keep the approved Quincy school calendar in place.

Koch, who chairs the school committee, has voiced support for this measure. WBUR reached out to Koch’s office for comment but did not hear back.

The school committee also voted against designating Lunar New Year as a holiday in May 2023.

Detracting members have argued the school calendar should be limited to state and federal holidays and that students already receive an excused absence if they miss school for the holiday.

But many Quincy parents who testified at last week's meeting voiced hope the holiday's recognition would strengthen their representation in the city.

Thuy Leung, one parent, said students shouldn’t feel torn between attending school or choosing to spend the day with their families.

"Recognizing Lunar New Year as a holiday isn’t about taking the day off, it’s about acknowledging the reality of our city today," she said during the committee meeting's open forum. Citing Quincy's high percentage of Asian American students, she added: "This is their Christmas, their Thanksgiving, their time to celebrate the tradition that defines who they are."

The committee has not established any new school holidays in the last 10 years, according to Perdios.

Lebo, a vocal opponent of the proposal, pointed out the child care concerns of parents should the day become a school holiday. She referenced how only 3.2% of elementary school students cited the cultural holiday as a reason for missing school that day, based on data from the clerk's office.

"That means the parents of 4,496 elementary school students would have had to find child care if they weren’t stay-at-home moms or dads," Lebo said in a committee discussion after the vote.

Based on an independent check by WBUR, 515 elementary-age students out of 4,436 total at those grade levels missed school on Jan. 29. That is 11.6% of the elementary-age population.

Truc Lai, another Quincy parent, testifiedthere was little communication from the district about the current policy around the holiday. More students would miss school on Lunar New Year if families actually knew they were allowed to keep their children home through an excused absence, she said.

"There was no communication from QPS," Lai said. "Many parents did not know that they could take the day off."

Perdios said she will keep pushing for the proposal until it’s approved. She also noted that three school committee members are up for reelection this fall and that she expects there to be challengers for those seats who will keep the issue alive.

Leung's husband, Tom Leung, will be one of them. The 1997 Quincy High School graduate already has launched a campaign website to run for a seat. His platform includes, among other things, recognizing Lunar New Year as an official school holiday.

"He's running because he feels the only way to make change is representation," Thuy Leung said in an interview. "He feels like this is his time to make a difference."

Correction: This story has been updated to more accurately paraphrase what Lebo said at the school committee meeting regarding the percentage of elementary school-age absences.