School Bans Halloween Parade

There will be no Halloween parade in the schoolyard this year. No 9-year-old witches haunting the halls. No jack-o’-lanterns colored by earnest first-graders - unless they’re offered a non-satanic alternative.

Halloween has been banned from the Los Altos schools to comply with the policy that already bans Christmas carols, Hanukkah songs and Easter eggs. The future also looks doubtful for those paper dragons used to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Some parents in the wealthy community overlooking Silicon Valley see the no-Halloween policy as political correctness gone mad.

Patrick Ferrell’s 7-year-old daughter came home from school and said the teacher told them “the Halloween parade would feed the devil” - or at least that’s how she understood it, he said Thursday.

“She’s confused. I’m confused,” Ferrell said. “We sanitize our schools and then wonder why our kids come out politically corrected, with less of a sense of identity, of values. It’s a damn shame.”

But the school board president, Phil Faillace, who informed parents of the rule, sees it as just the opposite. The board interpreted the holiday policy to include Halloween.

“We’re restoring values to the schools,” Faillace said. “We’re saying the value is in understanding and learning about a variety of beliefs about religious issues, not just one side.”

Some devout Christian families see Halloween as a satanic holiday, and complained that their children were forced to participate.