School has always had rules:
• No gum.
• No talking.
• No roughhousing.
"No Halloween costumes" may seem an unlikely addition, but holiday fluff may soon go the way of Wrigley's Spearmint for many students in the Treasure Valley.
Nationwide, public schools are moving away from traditional celebrations of popular holidays in favor of politically correct, neutralized versions that are stripped down or dressed up in labels less likely to offend.
Halloween, in particular, has become the elephant in the classroom. A lot of elementary schools in the Treasure Valley still celebrate, but district to district, school to school and even class to class, old indulgences are falling prey to the demands of modern times, concerned parents and federal regulations.
In Boise, Hillcrest Elementary is hosting an evening event this year called "Ghouls at School," with organized trick-or-treating, a book walk and a dance.
Collister's calendar includes Halloween parties but with the caveat, "Please, no costumes or masks."
Highlands Elementary is throwing "Harvest Parties" where costumes are welcome, but only if they can be put on quickly over street clothes at the end of the day and work without fake blood, gory masks, face paint, hair dye or toy weapons.
The melting pumpkin
Some local schools are still having parades, and most have fun things planned for Oct. 31, but the trend is "less is more."
This shift has met with both satisfaction and indignation. Some parents feel that allowing Halloween in public school violates religious sensibilities and the basic function of the classroom. But others think kids lose something when customs, however silly, fall prey to mandated homogeneity.
Franklin Elementary in Boise has a diverse community of students. They come from the United States, Africa, India, Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Vietnam, Laos and Bosnia. The resulting mix of faiths and ideologies makes it difficult to celebrate anything without excluding someone.
"You have a third to half of the kids who don't celebrate Halloween. So if you had a parade, you'd have to leave half of them out," said Patty Anderson, a sixth-grade teacher at Franklin.
She has been teaching in Boise for 30 years and recalls a time when the few kids who didn't celebrate Halloween were kept home from school. Modifications were meant to remedy this problem, but Anderson suggested it would almost be easier to leave the festivities at home.
"We used to have parades and treats and more candy than could make a kid puke," she joked. "Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but anymore, with all of the restrictions, it just isn't any fun anymore."
"I think the kids understand that it really doesn't have anything to do with school," added Charlotte Elwood, a veteran fifth- and sixth-grade teacher at Franklin. "We don't make it a national holiday by celebrating it all day long. We try to downplay it because it's a distraction."
No child left in costume
There is a growing murmur about the quality of public education in this country, and people at every level are looking at what can be sacrificed to make learning more efficient and effective. Halloween was an easy choice. Costumes and candy distract from the ultimate mission of school — education.
That mission has never changed, but society has. In an increasingly global culture driven by competition, there is a lot more pressure for kids to perform. No Child Left Behind has altered curriculums and academic schedules accordingly, requiring teachers to change the way they teach.
"You have children in school for such a short period of time that you have to make sure that time isn't wasted," said Allison Westfall, public information officer for Nampa School District.
She said Nampa schools decide individually how to deal with issues like Halloween, but most opt to scale it back in favor of after-school festivities that "protect instructional time."
Her own daughter has Halloween costumes planned for the next three years, but whatever opportunities she has lost to show them off at school is for the greater good, in Westfall's opinion. "I really want her to get a good education, so I understand that means that time has to be spent a certain way," she said. "It's still fun and the holiday is still there, but school is for school."
"The academic rigor is a lot higher than it has ever been," echoed Tricia Stone, principal of Lincoln Elementary in Caldwell. "We don't have time to stop over many hours to give a day to a holiday like that."
The way we were
In 1967, Stone was a first-grader at Lincoln, and in 1983, she got her first teaching job there. This year is her first as principal, meaning she has seen just about every stage of the evolution of Halloween.
"When I was a classroom teacher, students did bring their costumes to school, and they dressed up. It was a huge process, and then there was a little Halloween parade. It was quite the event," she said. "It's just downplayed so much more these days. We just don't have the time."
The question is, are kids missing out? According to Stone, positive new spins on the holiday keep them happy.
"Our teachers do a pretty nice job of incorporating the curriculum into the season, into fall and harvest, but include a lot of academics with it," she said. "Our memories of school won't be the same. I know what they're missing, but they probably don't."
If you were ever a student of Sheila Cantrell-Reynolds, then you know all too well how much they're missing. She taught fifth grade in the same classroom at Pierce Park Elementary in Boise for 21 years. She put on annual musical programs and implemented interactive learning before it became the norm. She took her kids on field trips to swim, bowl and play in her own backyard.
For Halloween, she decorated her classroom the first day of October.
"It's so different than it was when I started," she said.
Cantrell-Reynolds left Pierce Park in 2003 and moved to Emmett for part-time work as an elementary music teacher. She feels like she has regained some of the old magic of teaching — before there were so many liabilities, controversies and constraints.
"Teachers do their very best, but it's so much mandated what they can teach and what subjects and for how long," she said. "They do the best they can with what they have and they try to make it fun, but it just gets harder and harder for them to do that because their hands are tied, because their creativity is dictated to them."
No one pretends to think Halloween is a serious part of this underlying issue, but it is a piece of the puzzle. Public education is moving toward a no-frills platform, and what starts with a cupcake ban may end in a place worth picketing. For now, school kids in Emmett will get their fill of dressing up during a themed celebration of Red Ribbon Week, what Cantrell-Reynolds calls "a compromise."
Rise of the PTO
Powers that be aside, parents influence the pendulum swings in public education. Melissa McGrath, public information officer for the Idaho State Board of Education, said Idaho leaves it up to each district to make rules about things like holidays. Within those districts, there is a lot of dialogue between parents, teachers and administrators about the best way to satisfy a piecemeal vision.
"We're answerable to the taxpayers. We want to make sure that we are making the best use of our time at school and making it as full of instruction as we can," said Nelda Reed, school counselor at West Canyon Elementary in the Vallivue district. "We do have a time for kids to dress up, but they're supposed to dress up as a character from a book that they've read and have that book in hand as part of their costume. The focus again is trying to tie Halloween into literature and reading but still allowing a little fun."
"As you get into the education side, you gear up for Halloween because it's almost an excuse for kids to misbehave," said Vickie Manning, a local Title One tutor and stay-at-home mom.
As a teacher, she sees the need for restrictions, but as a parent, she fears that holiday downsizing in the classroom may be a snowball in an avalanche. "OK, so we can't have it in schools," she said, "but why is it going that way everywhere else?"
Trick or treat?
That conversation is ongoing. Schools throughout the Treasure Valley are working toward balance, and public outcry, so far, has been minimal.
Community and alternative events are on the rise, and though some members of the older generation are sad to see things change, most agree that this is not the same world.
"The culture is still there for kids," Stone said. "Maybe Halloween is not as emphasized here in the classroom, but it's still in their heads and their hearts."
Erin Ryan: 672-6732
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