Students will once again dance around the may pole next spring.
New Westminster school trustees approved a request by the May Day task force to extend its consultation period beyond the 2017 May Day celebrations. The intent behind the extension is to allow for a broader community discussion to take place.
Over the past year, the task force, made up of district staff, teachers, support staff, parents and community members, met a handful of times to discuss the elements that are involved in planning and preparing for May Day, according to associate superintendent Janet Grant, one of the task force members.
Specifically, the group looked at three different parts of the May Day tradition: the ceremony, the associated curriculum and the royal suite.
“What we want to do is we want to develop some surveys and get some broader feedback before we take our final recommendations to the board, and we need time to do that,” Grant said when asked why the task force needed an extension.
The May Day task force was approved by the school board in November 2015.
Its purpose was to gather feedback from the community about the school district’s involvement in May Day celebrations and report back to trustees and staff with any findings and recommendations. The original deadline, set out when the task force was created, was fall of 2016, which would have given the district enough time to implement any necessary changes to the upcoming May Day festivities.
The task force has come up with a survey that will be circulated amongst parents, staff, teachers, students and the community at large in the coming months with the hopes it’ll encourage more discussion on the future of the event, according to Grant.
As it stands now, the May Day event is organized by staff with the New Westminster school district.
New West students in Grade 3 participate in a folk dance on the day of while Grade 4 students take part in the traditional may pole dance. Schools also choose one boy and one girl in Grade 5 to represent them in either the May Queen suite or as a Royal Knight. This tradition will continue for the 2017 May Day event.
The task force is expected to report back with recommendations to school trustees in June 2017.
