a few students here or there?

The school isn't canceling a holiday, because Halloween isn't a holiday in the calendar of most or probably all public schools. The kids still have to go to school on that day. What they are canceling is a parade. If anything, I have to wonder how people ever thought such celebrations were appropriate in public schools to begin with.

Or at least hasn't been since the Romans conquered the Celts. Why shouldn't elementary kids get to have fun and enjoy their school and their childhood for the occasional day of festivity?

which occurred on Oct. 31. "All Saints Day" or "All Hallows Day" was the next Day, Nov. 1st. Therefore, Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day.'

https://carm.org/halloween

It's clearly a religious derivation, kind of like 'Christmas.' Too damn bad folks can't just live with our varied culture, educate their/our children, and allow the kids to PLAY!

Life doesn't have to be all about work and seriousness. We had holdiay celebrations in school when I was a kid and we still had time to learn.

Oh, now it has to be called a "Fall Party"


My wife is the room mom and I helped put a flyer together for her. I would have loved to make it cool and include a picture like this-




But since party is an Fall Party, (which happens to be on the fucking 30th of the month), I had to find something that wouldn't offend some some parents delicate sensibilities of the mythology they are brain-washing their kid into

So used something like this LOL

god, n' stuff

Time to stop that state sponsored religion.

stop that crap too!!!

They have Winter holiday stuff instead. Same for Easter is now the Spring holiday.

Then he made school boards." -- a great American, Mark Twain

They have to provide an alternative activity for the kids who don't want to dress up and parade around. And...it takes an entire afternoon that could be devoted to prepping for all those standardized tests!

Plenty of small towns still have Halloween parades and daytime trick-or-treating now. Our local mall even provides a Halloween party and trick-or-treating. (Like everything else, it has become overkill.) There are still plenty of things to do for Halloween.

"Numerous Percent"

Now that I've cleared that up... It's coffee time!

And he's coming back any day now!

I haven't heard about that happening in years.

They are afraid of Devils and witches for real!

Morons ruin it with dumb suspicions

We were forbidden from wearing Halloween costumes to school. Right after Halloween though, every year they had dress like a literary character day. I didn't always participate in it. If you did dress as a literary character there was a parade you walked in around the school and the teachers judged for best costume individual and team.

That way it's relevant to school than random costumes. I think it's a pretty good idea.

Having taught in a wide range of grade levels in more than one state, I can say that different states, districts, and schools handle holidays differently.

The bottom line, though, is that schools can't cancel Halloween. They can simply make sure that students on campus are focused on academics during school hours.

I can argue, and HAVE argued, all sides of this debate. In practice, I'm flexible.

I can say, though, that as a teacher, I'd prefer that the festivities happen AFTER school. A day spent trying to teach lessons to over-stimulated and over-sugared students is frustrating and draining.

I once taught in a school that stopped the entire day for an all day Halloween extravaganza. Some of us lobbied, and won, replacing it with a harvest festival that was all inclusive...because public education is supposed to be inclusive.

We wore overalls and spent the day reading about, writing about, and doing math with pumpkins, leaves, corn, acorns, apples, etc.; we built scarecrows in each class for a school-wide scarecrow contest, and we went outside for an all-school-on-the-field square dance. It was fun.

I also taught in schools that encouraged costumes, parades, and parties, and spent the day dealing with crying children who destroyed their costume at school before they ever got to go trick-or-treating, over excited children, candy everywhere, and sugar peaks and crashes. And parents who complained that we didn't do enough, and parents who demanded a different room for their children for the day or just kept them home...

At my current school, the PTO used to run a Halloween carnival after school, so that the school day was over and only people who wanted to participate showed up. Games and contests and treats. That was fun, too. I'm not sure why they stopped; I think it was partly the enrollment crash that accompanied the economic crash, and partly power struggles with the revolving principal door.

I was the itinerant. Lucky me. They always had their Halloween parties before my class, so they could send them to me all wound up, in (partial, usually) costumes, and on a sugar rush. The teachers just wanted to get rid of the kids so they could clean up after their parties. Try teaching a lesson under those circumstances.

Non-participating students used to go home a half-day, but the parents got tired of that. So now the schools have to offer an alternative activity for those students. "Lucky" librarian or whoever got stuck with that duty.

I really like your harvest festival. That seems like the best compromise and it doesn't sacrifice instruction time.

(P.S. I don't miss any of it!)

Meh.... this is getting a bit silly, IMO.

Halloween is a just a bit of fun.

I am wondering if it is Christian fundamentalists. I have a feeling that it is.

Lots of candy and carbonated orange drink. Yum. Cancelling Halloween in elementary school is just wrong. We had morning and afternoon recess and one after lunch as well. So we ran off the extra sugar we got twice a year. (We had the same kind of party on Valentine's Day).

Halloween is a non-religious celebration. Religion should not be able to impose.

Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve, is a yearly celebration observed in a number of countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It initiates the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers. Within Allhallowtide, the traditional focus of All Hallows' Eve revolves around the theme of using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death."

Nor does it have a particularly large number of fundies.

The Scrooge of Halloween ROFLMAO