When is 20% > 80%?
I don't usually cite the Daily Caller, but their explanation of this from history to current is quite readable:
How Christianity And Paganism Collide In Halloween
http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/29/how-christianity-and-paganism-collide-in-halloween/
I can't believe this controversy has come up again. The roots of Halloween do not matter. It has evolved into a secular, fun, and often creative American custom. It shares no likeness to Christmas or any other religious holiday, period. If my children attended a school where the tail wagged this specific dog, I would challenge the policy head on.
Tinker v. Des Moines
Clothing as freedom of expression in schools is protected by the first amendment and upheld by the supreme court.
End of discussion.
annielou said:
I can't believe this controversy has come up again. The roots of Halloween do not matter. It has evolved into a secular, fun, and often creative American custom. It shares no likeness to Christmas or any other religious holiday, period. If my children attended a school where the tail wagged this specific dog, I would challenge the policy head on.
BUT...BUt...But...but we should make sure we don't offend magic sky dwellers.
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
annielou said:
I can't believe this controversy has come up again. The roots of Halloween do not matter. It has evolved into a secular, fun, and often creative American custom. It shares no likeness to Christmas or any other religious holiday, period. If my children attended a school where the tail wagged this specific dog, I would challenge the policy head on.
BUT...BUt...But...but we should make sure we don't offend magic sky dwellers.
Leave it to you to show restraint 
And thank you for finding the supreme court decision, I know I can always count on your when it comes to first amendment issues. And thank you also for the separate info you sent involving separation of church and state 
spontaneous said:
Tinker v. Des Moines
Clothing as freedom of expression in schools is protected by the first amendment and upheld by the supreme court.
End of discussion.
It’s not an unlimited protection, and the Supreme Court has continued the discussion about where the boundaries should be in several cases since 1969.
It all goes away in Middle school. Some dress, some don't. No parade, no party. Just make it the same for elementary school. Many kids dress, many don't. My kid does Halloween, but doesn't wear a costume to school. The only kids who care about being excluded in elementary are the ones whose parents told them to. Either they are sad, or feel better because they know the "truth". It's their parents job to explain to their kid why they feel Halloween is a devil holiday, just like its their job to tell their kid why they can't go to birthday parties or say the pledge of allegiance. If a school traditionally has a party or parade, their parents get to choose, and the parade is the last 20 minutes of school. We live in a district where there are many different religious celebrations not occurring around Xmas, so since Diwali, Chinese New Year, and Hannukah aren't often the same time as Xmas, we do a Winter Break party, so nobody feels it's religious.
There are many people on MOL who like to fault other western/northern districts for our lack of diversity and exclusivity, but in truth, while our diversity is not so much about black/white, we seem to do a better job about not turning trivial issues into larger racial ones.
I don’t even care about the party or the parade. And the candy? They’ll get more than enough of that later. But at least let the kids who want to wear costumes do that. This isn’t a neighborhood school, a lot of students are bused in, so it isn’t as though they’ll just see each other in the neighborhood after school and can show their costumes to each other.
spontaneous said:
Tinker v. Des Moines
Clothing as freedom of expression in schools is protected by the first amendment and upheld by the supreme court.
End of discussion.
Not nearly so definitive. It had to do with a black armband and political speech. Subsequent decisions have for instance allowed schools to ban clothing with Confederate symbols. Which seems more relevant to this situation.
It warms my heart to know we have a new annual tradition here in SOMA. This thread promises to resurface every year to revive this debate.
Happy Halloween everyone!
THIS. This has been going since my boys were in elementary school and now one's in college and the other a HS junior. I was very active in the PTA and this would inevitably rear its head. It didn't happen overnight. Seemed like each time new families moved into SOMA, they intro'd their belief systems and some, not many, but some, tried to strong-arm the principal(s), teachers and the PTA into seeing things their way.
There are a handful of parents who deem this as evil and want no parts of it. As part of that parent group hosting these school events, it was all about the fun and silliness of it. And although it doesn't have anything to do with education, what it does help with is socialization, participation in an activity as a group and cooperation. This protest continues to baffle me because we advertise ourselves as inclusive and open yet, when something doesn't fit into our box, we take a stand to delete it.
Children will be asked to join in several activities that may be outside of their comfort zone. No one is forcing a child or a parent to do anything that is uncomfortable to them but for goodness sakes, can those who don't want to join not take it away from the others who do? It's called freedom of choice and free will.
annielou said:
I can't believe this controversy has come up again. The roots of Halloween do not matter. It has evolved into a secular, fun, and often creative American custom. It shares no likeness to Christmas or any other religious holiday, period. If my children attended a school where the tail wagged this specific dog, I would challenge the policy head on.
ska said:
spontaneous said:
Tinker v. Des Moines
Clothing as freedom of expression in schools is protected by the first amendment and upheld by the supreme court.
End of discussion.
Not nearly so definitive. It had to do with a black armband and political speech. Subsequent decisions have for instance allowed schools to ban clothing with Confederate symbols. Which seems more relevant to this situation.
There are also issues of prior restraint. Confederate symbol could cause disruption and may have actually caused disruption in the schools where it was banned. Clothing and symbols that cause disruption are not permitted. Casper, The Friendly Ghost might cause laughter and joy.... that would be disruptive. We can't have laughter and joy... after all, it is a school.
I could also envision a kid being physically harmed for wearing a Trump mask.
A ....ing Halloween costume is not disruptive in itself.
campbell29 said:
There are many people on MOL who like to fault other western/northern districts for our lack of diversity and exclusivity, but in truth, while our diversity is not so much about black/white, we seem to do a better job about not turning trivial issues into larger racial ones.
That's nice. In this case, those being referred to as 'religious nuts' tend to be Black. And tend to live in the SB zoned neighborhood. But the interlopers, the smaller percentage who have the option to attend this school or not (or signed up for their zoned school too late) want to dictate not-their-own neighborhood school's policy.
So... this power struggle along religious / class (housing) lines also happens to be along race lines. Thanks for being the one to help bring that up.
sprout said:
We're being requested to be nice to those kids. .
this is such an important point. Lost in the outrage over "political correctness" is that at its heart, what people like to call PC is just about being nice to each other, and respectful of how other people might be different from us.
everything shouldn't always be about ourselves.
It's "being nice to each other" up to a point. The posture of "be nice to me," when it becomes too all demanding and hypersensitive, becomes its own kind of tyranny disguised as a plea for niceness.
spontaneous, when you start calling other people (religious minorities and those who support them) “nuts” for theIr positions, you come across as very selfish. You are so concerned that your child have one more place to show off an amazing hand made costume that you don’t care about the reasons that schools strive to have inclusive priorities. Send in pictures tomorrow and get over it.
Just because the religious history of Halloween is irrelevant to you doesn’t mean that you get to decree it irrelevant to everyone. No matter how much majority-culture privilege is coursing through your veins today. Taxpayer funded public schools have a responsibility to be inclusive “safe zones” for all students, and that sometimes requires tough leadership decisions about which traditions to leave at the door. It isn’t always majority rule, thank goodness.
As a class parent, I’ll be at my son’s school helping kids with costumes. But, honestly, my thoughts will be with the classmate and close friend of my son who is sitting in the library waiting things out, because her tradition does not include Halloween. I wish we were doing a classroom event that could include her, and leaving Halloween celebrations to start at 3.
bub said:
It's "being nice to each other" up to a point. The posture of "be nice to me," when it becomes too all demanding and hypersensitive, becomes its own kind of tyranny disguised as a plea for niceness.
how often is it "demanding and hypersensitive?"
99% of the complaints I've seen from people who feel constrained by "PC" are mostly just people feeling upset that they can't be offensive without other people being offended.
kibbegirl said:
Children will be asked to join in several activities that may be outside of their comfort zone. No one is forcing a child or a parent to do anything that is uncomfortable to them but for goodness sakes, can those who don't want to join not take it away from the others who do? It's called freedom of choice and free will.
On the other hand, it’s:
Formerlyjerseyjack said:
A ....ing Halloween costume
when did students start wearing costumes during school hours in the SOMA district, anyway?
my kids are now in college, but I still remember going to the Jefferson Halloween parade, and helping kids into their costumes at the end of the school day.
When someone can seriously characterize and object to Halloween today as having a shred of religious significance to the children who "celebrate" it, I call that demanding and hypersensitive.
Here's some food for thought about activities and traditions that have become totally disconnected from their ancient religous origins:
"One difference between the ancient and modern Olympic Games is that the ancient games were played within the context of a religious festival. The Games were held in honor of Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, and a sacrifice of 100 oxen was made to the god on the middle day of the festival."
Are track and field athletes with Olympic aspirations Zeus worshipers? Maybe we should ban track and field to prevent our kids from being lured into the cult of javelin, shot put, and marathon running.
How about art education? Should your kids be given a trigger warning when an art teacher is going to discuss medieval and renaissance painting with its ubiquitous religious imagery?
Given that we all have roots in pre-modern deeply superstitious, religious literalist cultures, I'm sure there are many more examples.
ml1 said:
bub said:
It's "being nice to each other" up to a point. The posture of "be nice to me," when it becomes too all demanding and hypersensitive, becomes its own kind of tyranny disguised as a plea for niceness.
how often is it "demanding and hypersensitive?"
99% of the complaints I've seen from people who feel constrained by "PC" are mostly just people feeling upset that they can't be offensive without other people being offended.
bub said:
How about art education? Should your kids be given a trigger warning when an art teacher is going to discuss medieval and renaissance painting with its ubiquitous religious imagery?
Actually, yes. The "ubiquitous religious imagery" can be and is troubling for many who are not Christian.
I always feel a sense of discomfort when going through galleries of these works of art because of its Christianity.
They don’t. Our school sent home very specific guidance. No costuming of any sort until just before parade.
ml1 said:
when did students start wearing costumes during school hours in the SOMA district, anyway?
my kids are now in college, but I still remember going to the Jefferson Halloween parade, and helping kids into their costumes at the end of the school day.
Let’s just call it context and a sensitive introduction, since I sense “bub” is using the words “trigger warning” to be dismissive of minority culture people who might have issues.
ska said:
bub said:
How about art education? Should your kids be given a trigger warning when an art teacher is going to discuss medieval and renaissance painting with its ubiquitous religious imagery?
Actually, yes. The "ubiquitous religious imagery" can be and is troubling for many who are not Christian.
I always feel a sense of discomfort when going through galleries of these works of art because of its Christianity.
So how do we teach history to our kids? I think a lot of people who view themselves as approaching this subject from a progressive perspective are actually feeding the fires of un-progressive intolerance. There are citizen out there in red state land who don't want Islam's role in world history being taught because it "promotes" Islam. What do we do? Let one group of kids sit out history class when the rise of Islam is being discussed, another group stay home when the the rise of Christendom is being discussed and so on even though the intent of the lessons are purely historical and not doctrinal?
History class is the correct place to teach the facts of a religion, the history of the religion and the impact of the religion (positive and negative) in as neutral was as possible.
European art of the medieval and renaissance period requires caution because much of it was designed to advocate Christianity.
bub said:
So how do we teach history to our kids?
It sounds like this isn’t about wearing Halloween costumes in class anymore.
This Halloween controversy has actually caused more divisiveness than inclusiveness. It is absolutely ridiculous on every level.
When was the last time you went to church for the Halloween mass?