Arlington Schools to Excuse Absences for Native American ‘POW Wows’ While Slashing School Days Below State Minimum

Arlington Public Schools, a white-majority school district in northern Virginia, is planning to allow students to skip school for Native American “pow wow gatherings” as it considers dropping the number of school days next year below the state-mandated minimum.

If passed, the school board proposals would shake up an already chaotic academic calendar that includes frequent diced school weeks and generous days honoring cultural observances.

During summer break, APS introduced a policy amendment that would qualify “pow wows” as an excused absence despite having few Native American students enrolled districtwide.

In fact, APS has fewer Native American students than schools within the district. The 2025-26 student demographic data shows there were only 37 “American Indian” students attending APS across all 42 of its schools and educational programs. American Indian is the term APS calls students of indigenous origin, according to the district’s “DEI Glossary.”

Last year, Native American students comprised a vanishingly small subset of the student body — just 0.13% — so minuscule that, for reporting purposes, APS grouped them in demographically with the district’s 12 Pacific Islanders and the 2,275 students who identify as multiple ethnicities.

The proposed amendment to APS’s attendance policy would permit students who are members of a state or federally recognized tribal nation headquartered in Virginia to skip a full day of classes each academic year to attend that tribe’s “pow wow gathering,” an often annual event, provided that the student’s parent or guardian gives advance notice.

A memo submitted by the APS policy review team says that adding the Native American ritual to the school district’s list of approved absences, which currently accepts 13 eligible excuses, would bring Arlington County into compliance with Virginia’s existing education code.

In 2022, the state legislature unanimously passed a bill, introduced by Virginia House Democrat Elizabeth Guzmán, that granted one excused absence per school year to public school students of Native American heritage wanting to attend “pow wow gatherings.”

As a result, every Virginia public school division is legally required to honor “pow wow”-related absences, though districts did not necessarily have to rewrite their truancy policies.

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