Welcome to Continental School District, home of the Continental Colts! We are a small school district located in Green Valley, Arizona, approximately 20 miles south of Tucson, and 40 miles north of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. There are many exciting and beautiful things to see here in our area of the desert southwest.

Our school serves just under 500 students in pre-school through 8th grade. We are very proud of our outstanding students and dedicated teachers. Because of their efforts, our school received the “Excelling School” title in 2007 from the Arizona Department of Education. We have high expectations for the students in our care and we are devoted to their success.
 
We hope you will spend some time on our new Web site. We have tried to include information you may need about our school and District, as well as Helpful Links we hope you'll find useful. If you would like to contact us directly, we would love to visit with you. We look forward to getting to know the people in our community who make Continental School District a supportive place to learn and grow.

Greetings from the Superintendent:

Congratulations to Continental’s newly elected Governing Board President, Mr. Chet Davis. Also, Mr. Bill McNarie is the newly elected Clerk. They will serve in these roles for the calendar year of 2010.

This reminds me. In the month of February, we celebrate President’s Day. Looking through the newspaper and watching commercials on TV, one could easily conclude that merchants created the modern holiday, just so they could hold their annual President’s Day sales. President’s Day is intended to honor presidents but for many of us who don't get the day off from work, the holiday seems to pass almost unnoticed. So, what is Presidents' Day and how did it come about?

According to the Gregorian calendar that is in use today, George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, but according to the Julian calendar that was in effect in England and her colonies until 1752, his birth date was February 11th. This is because the new Gregorian calendar added eleven days to the old date to bring the calendar year into step with the astronomical year. So, when Washington was still alive, some Americans celebrated his birthday on February 11th and some on February 22nd.

Along came Abraham Lincoln, another famous US president, who was also deserving of a special day of recognition. Lincoln was born on February 12th, and so now two presidential birthdays fell within a short time of one another. Prior to 1968, this fact didn't seem to bother anyone. February 22nd was observed as a federal public holiday to honor George Washington and February 12th was observed as a public holiday (in most states) to honor Abraham Lincoln.

Then things changed. In 1968, the 90th Congress created a uniform system of federal Monday holidays shifting three existing holidays to Monday and the law took effect in 1971. As a result, Washington's Birthday holiday was changed from February 22nd date to the third Monday in February. This change was not without controversy as there was some concern that Washington's identity would be lost since the third Monday in February would never fall on his birth date of February 22nd. The single holiday observance meant that Washington's birth date had essentially been eliminated.

If you are a traditionalist, you'll be happy to know that even though Washington's birthday and Lincoln's birthday share a single day on the federal holiday register, many communities continue to observe the original holidays by staging pageants and reenactments of important milestones in the lives of Washington and Lincoln. The National Park Service features a number of historic sites and memorials to honor the lives of these two presidents, and therefore it is not surprising to find that many of the birthday observance activities and events occur at many of these locations.

And for your information, we will have school on February 15th, President’s Day.

Jim Nelson
Superintendent
Continental School District #39