Canutillo students celebrate MLK Day in return for Eagles semifinal game
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, most Borderland students and employees in government offices had the day off.
But folks at the Canutillo Independent School District weren’t so lucky. Everyone had to work and learn Monday, although some of them felt pretty privileged to be in school.
Students and staff didn’t have the holiday because they took off Dec. 12, the Friday when the Eagles got all the way to the state championship. The district gave everyone the day off. But there’s no better way to make it up than on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
First-graders at Garcia Elementary spent the whole day learning about King. In fact, every student at every Canutillo ISD school focused on the civil rights leader, every teacher, transforming his or her lesson plan to incorporate King’s dream.
“What I wanted my students to get out of it is to make the connection between past, present and future,” said Garcia Elementary Principal Tangela Carter. “What is it that Dr. King and people like that who lost their lives and freedoms for us, what is it that they wanted us to learn and want us to continue to do?”
Most parents didn’t mind their kids being in school, and even the older kids at Canutillo High had only positive things to say about being in school when everyone else had the day off, keeping in mind that historic Friday in Decemeber when the Canutillo Eagles traveled to Lubbock for the state semifinal game against Ennis High.
Canutillo lost, but it made history, being the first 11-man team from El Paso to ever make it that far.
Canutillo ISD had already planned to schedule classes on Martin Luther King Day, in case it had to take an emergency day off. That day was Friday, Dec. 12.
