It's not all in the name

BENTON COUNTY — As Halloween rolls around, Thanksgiving and Christmas are not far behind. Neither are Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

Arkansas schools are allowed to have up to nine celebrations a school year. Many schools have major classroom celebrations sometime in the autumn, another right before they leave for the midyear break, then at least one more in the spring. Although the law limiting the number of parties is new, the idea of having the parties is not. What has changed in some schools, however, is what those parties are named. For example, everyone knew the fall party as a Halloween party, the winter party as a Christmas party and the spring party as a Valentine’s or Easter party. Time and diversity, however, have changed that for some schools.

“ We’re becoming more aware of our multicultural population, ” said Janet Mc-Donald, principal at Bentonville’s Spring Hill Middle School. “ Not all students celebrate Christmas. ”

The school has a fall party and a winter holiday party that is right before the winter break, which includes Christmas, she said. When the school has celebrations, it tries to include activities from all major religions and cultures, a practice that teaches students about the world around them without actually promoting the religions. This also takes place in the social studies classes, McDonald said.

“ Every year, we work to bring balance to the information we bring to the students, ” she said.

Schools in Pea Ridge have gone to the more generic terms for the parties but for a slightly different reason.

Keith Martin, principal at the elementary school, said the school has celebrations called a fall party, a winter party and a spring party because they are more about celebrating student successes during that time frame than about specific holidays.

For some school districts, there is no hard and fast description for the celebrations.

“ It’s whatever we call it at the time, ” said Dan Siemens, principal at Siloam Springs’ Southside Elementary School. “ To call it a fall party doesn’t change what it is. ”

Siemens said the school still calls the wintertime party a Christmas party and even has a Christmas sing-along.

“ Being in a conservative town helps in that way, ” he said. “ It really depends on the makeup of the district (on what the schools feel the need to call their celebrations ). ”

For school districts such as Decatur and Gravette, the traditions haven’t changed.

“ Halloween is still Halloween. Christmas is still Christmas, ” Superintendent Mike Parrish said. He said there have been no complaints from the community about the celebrations, probably because most people in the community celebrate the traditional holidays.

“ This country was founded as a democracy where the majority rules, ” he said. Gravette Superintendent Curtis Spann said the school district still uses the traditional terms.

“ We don’t have people concerned, and it hasn’t come up, ” he said.

source link: http://www.nwarktimes.com/bcdr/News/41570/