School Board Defends Death Of Halloween Parties Debate Over ‘Fall Festival’ Policy Riles Up Parents, Board Members
Disagreement over the nature of Halloween and its place in school celebrations stirred an emotional debate here Monday as the Lakeland School Board defended its fall festival.
One parent’s request for more consistency in how the district’s schools celebrate the holiday quickly turned into a heated discussion about God, the Constitution and the founding fathers.
The district’s amended guidelines allow principals to pick three holiday parties per year. They can include Fall Festival, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
Halloween is no longer included in the list.
“What’s wrong with Halloween?” asked Rebecca Fulwiler, a Rathdrum parent. She added that she thought the effort was mere political correctness. “The minority should not decide for the majority,” she said.
A recent survey of 477 district parents showed support for a Halloween celebration. The survey was commissioned by John Asher, the principal at John Brown Elementary School, where most of the controversy has centered. Some parents there are upset that the district’s four other schools hold harvest festivals, while John Brown Elementary has Halloween parties. “It seems there’s a lot of inconsistency,” said Tami Scott of Rathdrum.
To learn what parents want, Brown sent home a survey asking parents if they support Halloween parties. According to Asher, 326 surveys came back yes, while 43 came back no. “It’s still quite strong ‘give us our Halloween party,”’ he said.
But School Board Chairman William Reese dismissed the survey Monday night, at one point saying he was throwing it out and later caution ing it should be taken with a “grain of salt.”
“Halloween is religious,” Reese said. “Christmas is a historical event. We’re not touching Christmas.”
“Halloween historically is All Hallow’s Eve, it’s an evil holiday. It’s not a holiday I’m going to allow to be celebrated,” Reese said.
Rathdrum resident Pam Abram objected to Halloween being cast as religious, and warned that belief could lead to books about ghosts being taken off library bookshelves, too. The separation of church and state accommodates a melting pot of different beliefs, like Buddhism, she said.
“Our founding fathers founded this country because of God,” Reese countered. “The guys who founded this country weren’t coming from China. They were from Europe.”
Abram asked for a school-by-school vote on the issue. Board member Gary MacDonald defended the board’s efforts to find a compromise, but differed with Reese about the nature of the festivities.
“We wanted it so everybody could be more or less happy,” MacDonald said. “In these schools it is not a religious holiday. At school it is just a party.”
, DataTimes