The El Camino College Council acknowledged the holidays of Juneteenth, Cesar Chavez Day and Indigenous Peoples Day in an agreement for the college’s academic calendar on April 4.

The council decided to do a memorandum of understanding and signed it off. The rest of the council members agreed to sign it off and pull it as a memorandum of understanding agreement, which signals all parties involved to move forward with action.

The memorandum of understanding is not an official confirmation that the college will add the holidays to its calendar. The College Council decided to wait until each holiday date is collectively bargained to make it official.

The meeting featured Superintendent and President Brenda Thames, Academic Senate President Darcie McClelland, Dean of Enrollment Services Robin Dreizler and other administration and support members.

Throughout the meeting, members went over the first reading of the academic calendar draft.

It was then brought up that the committee had collectively bargained for these days. McClelland spoke out to give her thoughts.

“Is there any way we can hold this until those are collectively bargained?” McClelland said, “This is a huge deal on our campus, to actually get those holidays in.”

On behalf of the senate, McClelland expressed her frustration on how the holidays have yet to be added to the academic calendar.

“We would really like to see those holidays on the list and not say they might be options,” McClelland said.

If the proposal “comes across the table”, then the academic calendar will be collectively bargained by Fall 2022.

After President Thames mentioned holding the proposal until further notice, McClelland provided more thoughts on how she would rather push the potential holidays to officially be on the academic calendar instead of waiting.

“There’s no way we can just do it?” McClelland asked. “The administrators are in favor of this, the classified is in favor of this and the faculty are in favor of this. There’s no way to move that any faster?”

After hearing McClelland’s eagerness to finalize the academic calendar, the College Council acknowledged the importance of updating El Camino College’s academic calendar. However, they still agreed to postpone it as per Thames’ suggestion.

“We are tabling it until after those days are collectively bargained,” Thames said. “That conversation will be for another venue, however that happens.”