Resident renews plea to Reedsburg School Board to formally recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Dr. Benjamin Neeson told the Reedsburg School District board during public comment that a student had asked why Martin Luther King Jr. Day was not recognized on the district calendar and urged the board to change the calendar so future students see the holiday acknowledged.

Neeson described returning to the board after raising the issue two years earlier, saying a physician’s adopted daughter told her father she would graduate without the school recognizing MLK Day. “She said that she was disappointed…that MLK Day won’t be recognized until she graduates,” Neeson said. He told the board a district email had suggested recognition for the 2024–25 school year but said the change had not appeared on the calendar he reviewed.

Neeson said he raised the issue because of the importance of cultural recognition and to counter local displays of racism he referenced in nearby towns. “We have to be acceptant of other people’s culture and include them in our culture,” he said. He described speaking with a state representative who had become a school board member to effect a change and suggested it would only take one board member to raise the item at a meeting.

Board members did not respond formally to the public comment beyond routine practice statements. A board member noted that the district had heard Neeson the previous year and later told him that “this calendar that we’re approving tonight has MLK Day off for next year.” The board follows its practice of not engaging in extended dialogue during the public-comment period.

No formal action on calendar policy was taken during public comment; the district later voted to approve a 2025–26 calendar that includes MLK Day as an off day for staff and students.