School District: Halloween Banned - "Offensive to Witches"

We can not make this stuff up. A real school district with real administrators & real Board members has taken the unreal position that Halloween is offensive to witches & therfore they have banned Halloween celebrations in their schools.

The Puyallup school district, outside of Seattle, Washington sent letters out to parents advising them that Halloween celebrations, costumes & the traditional Halloween parade are now banned. They gave 3 primary reasons for the ban. The first 2 are a cover for their inane 3rd reason. First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time. Second, some families can't afford costumes and the celebrations thus can create embarrassment for children. The 3rd reason? The district said Halloween celebrations and children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches.

"Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that," a spokeswoman said.

On the district's list of guidelines related to holidays and celebrations is an item that reads: "Use of derogatory stereotypes is prohibited, such as the traditional image of a witch, which is offensive to members of the Wiccan religion."

An internal e-mail from October 2000 warned that "the Wiccan religion is a bona fide religion under the law, and its followers are entitled to all the protections afforded more mainstream religions. Building administrators should not tolerate such inappropriate stereotyping (images such as Witches on flying brooms, stirring cauldrons, casting spells, or with long noses and pointed hats) and instead address them as you would hurtful stereotypes of any other minority."

A few points: A. The Halloween parade is in the last half hour of classes. We seriously doubt that the wheels of learning will come to a stop for that lost half hour. They are using this "lost school time" as an excuse to further justify the ban on Halloween. B. They are taking the fun out of school by this ban & they are taking the creativity & imagination out of learning. C. We assume the district Halloween police will be searching classrooms for any inappropriate displaysof witches, black cats, etc. D. The school district has freakin idiots for administrators.

More than being idiots, they are sickeningly politically correct to an absurd point. Why not acknowledge Satanism or any of the myriad "religions" out there? This is the same school district that banned a fund-raisng event for tsunami victims because the fund-raisng involved a video game which the district deemed violent , though there is no empirical evidence that violent videos lead to school violence. It is also the same school district that has Winter & Holiday Concerts instead of acknowledging Christmas & the same district that has a Diversity Affairs Office with a Director & full time staff. That last item is telling. This office will go out of its way to justify its' existence by coming up with all sorts of culturally sensitve programs & dictums. Suffer the children.