Halloween Parties banned by School
 

In today's paper (up here in the Pacific NW)
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A Washington state school district has banned Halloween parties during the school day because it says children dressed up as goblins and witches take time away from learning, officials said on Thursday. "Our number one priority is protecting the instructional day," said Puyallup School District Superintendent Tony Apostle after the district canceled observance of the Oct. 31 celebration.
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Anyone else find it interesting that the superintendent's name is Apostle? I guess wearing a costume ruins the educational experience huh????

Do you have a link for this?


This happened to me when I was in school. Never made sense to me. But then again if it hadn't happened I wouldn't have this need to dress up still at my age.

This is so ridiculously asinine that I can not even begin to describe how I feel about this superintendent. He probably had an f'd up childhood where he was not allowed to go trick or treating or dress up because it is evil.

I'm so mad that the instructional day was assualted by Halloween when I went to school.

at my school, we had our "fall festival" party today. we can't call it a halloween party. the children had a great time playing games and jumping in the fun house. no costumes were allowed and we had many parents helping out. i guess this school district just doesn't want to have a halloween themed party. do they have a christmas party?

link:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/10...eut/index.html

while it seems like this can be disregarded as moronic behavior on the part of the school district, i have mixed feelings, i really do. on one hand, i remember the traditional "halloween parade" that i had throughout elementary school and the "day off" that it granted us, and how fantastic it could seem to a 3rd grader; but on the same note, i can see where administration is coming from. while i think that its much easier and fundamentally sound to integrate a celebration with the "learning experience" rather than eliminate it altogether, if the school simply can't stand to lose a day in the process, then chopping it out of the whole schedule seems relatively logical. the school may also be fearing the occasional backlash from the kids parents who can't celebrate halloween, in a society where everything has to be politically correct, they may even be using the "distraction approach" as a way to neutralize (and unfortunately sterilize) their learning environment.

bottom line, i liked halloween as a child, but i can see how some kids (and parents and teachers) can feel that their main purpose is being curtailed so that other kids (and parents and teachers) can binge on candy and punch. hell, its also a damn shame that the kids with mothers who make them damn good costumes (yeah, that was me :lol: ) don't get the chance to show off...

Eh people are yanking the fun out of the rest of life why not start them off early so they won't get bitter when they find out life sucks later on.

^^^^
Please note the heavy sarcasm.

I had a woman where I worked who wrote an official complaint because the company put snowflakes and bells and garland in the lobby at Christmas time. She felt that because she was Jewish, it was an affront to her.

I pointed out to the director that the woman in question, who was the receptionist for the executive offices, always decorated her desk and wore a costume on "All Hallows Eve" (Halloween), decorated for St Valentine's day and dressed up for St Patrick's day, yet she found the secular decorations at Christmas offensive.

I suspect the same sort of hypocrisy with this superintendent. I wonder if pep rallies, school picnics, and recess also detract from learning?

**trying to figure out how snow is an afront to being Jewish**

I really can't stand the fact that we are making our children get so serious about life at such an early age. It simply takes the child out of childhood, and makes for more stressed out anal adults. Stuff like this is happening everywhere. I remember in the sixth grade we only had 20 minutes for recess in a six hour school day. Then people wonder why so many kids can't sit still these days. We'd rather sit them in front of the TV than take them outside to blow off some steam. That's part of the reason child obesity is so high--they don't burn any calories any more. My neighbors have a girl in the 3rd grade, and a year ago she told me that she had homework almost every day. Homework in 2nd grade??? What the hell are we doing to our kids???

Why the hell not??? "Halloween" can't even be non-PC. It is a secular holiday that had its roots in a pagan festival.

I also heard that the excuse is that 'they're mainly concerned about kids dressing as witches, that they might offend real witches............'
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Please. We know who really is offended here..........
I'm so glad my stepdaughter's not in that district anymore, and when my son goes next year, he will be home-schooled (not just for this reason, but for many others....).

In my local paper:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/l...-3894572c.html

This is getting a bit rediculous. Schools are starting in early August. Teachers are giving out even more homework. Recess times are getting cut, but school days are getting longer. And now...they can't even give up one day of classes a year in the name of a holiday that all religions can enjoy. I guess this is all because America's schools are something like 17th in all the world, but still... Pulling shit like this won't help. All it does is breed a generation of repressed adults who don't know what "fun" is. You only get one childhood, but you'll have the rest of your life wishing you had a better one.

our district has said that we can't call it a halloween party because some children don't celebrate halloween and they couldn't participate: jehovah's witness, i believe. also, it is viewed as anti-christian and wouldn't be the right thing to do. this is said even though we are supposed to have a seperation of church and state. i don't see a problem having a halloween party, but it can't be done. or at least it can't be called a halloween party. go figure.

Amazing. The church has even adopted the holiday to fit a spiritual event. In the Lutheran church, I can even remember having a seperate "All Hallows Eve" and "All Saints Day" service. Catholics do it to. We celebrate the dead. Go figure that some uneducated extremists go and fuck it up for the rest of it. Can't they just choose not to participate??? It just pisses me off. Just because a couple of kids will be left out, we shouldn't have halloween??? That's just like saying that we shouldn't drive cars to Amish country because they don't drive them.

what next- Christmas?

Yeah, no doubt. Why should kids think of school as a place where fun could be had? I say, give 'em orange jello cut in the shape of a pumpkin for lunch and call it good.

Off topic, but does anyone else wonder why "Jingle Bells" stops after Christmas? Its a song about riding in a one-horse open sleigh, which can be done in many parts of the country until well after Christmas. Maybe because people hate snow 100% after Christmas, instead of just partially hating it before Christmas?

*edit- just to be sure, I searched the lyrics to Jingle Bells, and found this verse: "Rollin'down the street doing donuts in a clk while my homie's in the back bumpin' ray-j cell phone's bought to ring we ain't answerin' no two-way we aint tryna have no drama in this lovely christmas day."

That verse mentions Christmas, but unless I'm mistaken this verse is not in the original version of the tune.

Look...if the district has a religious stick up it's ass...it's Halloween that kids celebrate. Not Samhain.

oh, and not to mention cutting "Under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance

Sorry for not posting the link earlier:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...d_halloween_dc

What Halloween is now is so much different than whatever evilness it had in the past. It'd be like banning Volkswagen Beetles because Hitler had a hand in creating them. Yeah, some kid dressing up as Shrek is a big point for Satan.

Okay, from the CNN link: "Schools that want to have Halloween parties are welcome to have them, she said, but only after the school day ends.
Other U.S. schools have banned Halloween festivities because some families don't celebrate it for religious reasons and other cannot afford costumes."

Well, I guess after school is better than not at all.

I still can't understand ruining everyone's fun due to a few people's religion. If some kid with religiously weird parents has to sit in his desk in his regular clothes and watch the 95% of kids having a blast, he can take solace in the fact that the heathens in pagan costumes will eventually pay the eternal price for their sinfulness, and knowing that tastes much better than a little bag of M&Ms. Wow, that's the meanest thing I've ever written.

Okay, gotta feel bad for the kids who can't afford costumes. Or should I say, the kids who can't afford costumes in addition to having NO IMAGINATION. C'mon, the best costumes are homemade. The best costume I ever saw in school was a robot. A big box and foil and paper buttons and wires. That costume probably cost less than $1.25. And it rocked.

I hate political correctness. I myself am by no means racist, discriminatory, etc. , but stuff like this is freaking rediculous. They're children for God's sake! Kids get one night a year like this but then political "moralists" have to shove their face in the fun. Poor kids. :(

Earlier in the week there was a story about a district doing the same thing, and they sited not wanting to be insensitive to Wiccans.

Assinine.

I did a search for "political correctness," and this thread came up. Giving it a gigantic bump seemed appropriate, since it's approaching Halloween again.

Political correctness is marching on. How long can it be before this kind of thing reaches our shores?

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...ils/article.do

I think that's the idea. Schools like to keep children shapeless. No ideology, beliefs, identity. Safer that way.

Asinine. Great word, bad circumstances.

As A Witch I can assure you .....we wouldnt be offended!

Halloween is our New Years celebration and yes we throw parties. Hell, we started the pumpkin carving trend!

Excuses and lies! I am willing to bet they do have a "Christmas" party that disrupts things. More christian holidays inflicted upon those of us who do not celebrate them. What about Yule or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa? People who celebrate those dont get to celebrate them in a paid manner or even in a clssroom setting!

Breathe Sage and stop rant now.....

I was one of those kids with religiously weird parents (well, just a weird mother). I sure as hell didn't sit back and watch while the other kids had a blast; I wanted the punch and cookies at the Halloween party just as much as the rest of them. I just didn't have a costume.

Being the lone costume-less kid at school sucks. Being the lone kid without contraband trick-or-treating candy the next day sucks even worse. Should the school have cancelled the festivities because my mother thought that Halloween was a celebration of evil and Satan? No. There will always be someone who will be "offended" by the celebrations of others...the world doesn't need to cater to them. Let the kids be kids, for Christ's sake.

For years our schools have not had 'Halloween'-they've had 'Harvest Days' (hayrides, costume parades, etc. took place) and they don't do anything 'Christmas', they do 'Happy Holidays'.(The week off until New Year's day is called 'winter break')
During Ramadan, those that partake of it are allowed to not be in the cafeteria during lunchtimes and instead, set up a place for midday prayer. The schools are closed for Yom Kippur and try to give spring break between Passover and Easter.

That is much more PC :)

:rolleyes:

Yay. Just what we need more of... overzealous PC people.

While it does seem a bit much to stop having such parties, we might also look at it from the other end. Why should we have them? Is there a good educational reason for promoting Halloween?

Rather than looking for a good reason to exclude Halloween, maybe we should be looking for a good reasonto include it as a school activity. Half the schools where I have student teachers are uniform schools so it isn't an issue there. I don't know what the other half do at the moment, but I did get the question and told my student teachers to ask their schools for guidelines and decide how to handle things based on that.

I don't see Halloween as a big enough issue to be very concerned about it whether it's included or excluded.

Gilda

Not only is it 'PC', it's acually more in keeping with the original meanings of these days. In essence, they're going back to their roots.;) Samhain, a precursor to Halloween, is about the end of harvest, the beginning of earth's 'sleep' in preparation for the new life to come, etc., to be simply explained and Christmas, etc., has Norse/Celtic pagan traditions that are centuries old that have nothing to do with Christianity. Whether the schools that choose to change the specifics of these days know this, I couldn't tell you, but I certainly prefer the true meanings of the holidays/celebrations than what's taken them over.

Even when I was a small child (19 years ago now) Halloween costumes were not allowed, and it was understood that if you wore one to school, you would be sent to the office and your mother would be called and you would be asked to change clothes. Every school district I've been in has been like that. Their perspective is that something like Halloween takes place after school. Certainly, we did certain activities on Halloween that were Halloween-themed, but only a couple of classes I was in during elementary school had anything resembling a party.

Though one year our ASB managed to get around the no-costume rule because Halloween was during Homecoming Spirit Week, and we had dress-up days all week long anyways :D

I don't think it's the school's obligation to celebrate Halloween or any other holiday in any way, shape, or form. It just distracts from the purpose of school, which is education, not harvest parties, holiday parties, or anything of the like.

And the purpose of working is to serve your employer in exchange for a paycheck, but cutting loose once in a while and using a holiday as the excuse to do so never hurts and promotes good vibes...:D

To be honest. If this had happened at my school when I was a kid I would have been somewhat thrilled. That day during which the kids had their Halloween parties and parades I was forced to sit on the sidelines and watch. One teacher even went to the effort of helping me make a mask out of a grocery bag so I could wear it in the costume parade. My mother found out and chewed out the teacher and school. I never went trick or treating or was allowed to even dress up in my own house on Halloween.
I take my daughter trick or treating now and my mother complains loudly, telling me that I'm teaching her to worship Satan. I basically had to ask my daughter not to talk about Halloween to my mother at all. It's a bummer for her but at least she's not completely excluded and then picked on by other kids because of it.

I was raised in much the same manner as raeanna74. But I had a bit of an out in that every once in a while we had a party where we could dress up as a Biblical character! My parents always encouraged me to be Virgin Mary, but that's like being Princess Leah at a Star Wars convention! I routinely annoyed them by wanting to be Mary Magdalene or Lot's Wife (pillar of salt, anyone?) or Jezebel or Bathsheba or some other biblical hottie. ;P

There's a lot of not-for-kiddies stuff in the Bible....