Spooky Season for Kids and for Admin

As Halloween approaches, management teams buckle down their preventative measures to ensure equitable learning is still taking place on campuses across the state. For some, this holiday opens the doors for festive parties in the classroom, participation in dressing up for celebration, and conducting out of the box activities for students. Moreover, some of these activities may cause issue in an equitable learning environment.

Teachers, parents and students should be aware of the unintended consequences that may result in participation in the annual holidays. When visiting the lenses of administration, there are many variations of management decisions that need to be made to protect students and the culture of the school. For starters, simple percussions include classroom parties and assuring food allergies and dietary restrictions are met for all students. This could include protection of a student with peanut allergies our dairy restrictions. In addition, families that are non-binary and have different opinions of holidays and what should and should not be celebrated need to be taken into account. Students may become uncomfortable “celebrating” or lack thereof celebrating with peers and feel unwelcome or uncomfortable in the setting of celebration. One last consideration holding administrators in a difficult position on celebration for Halloween are costumes. As students take on new and different personas for the holiday, it is difficult to draw a line between appropriate and inappropriate. In moments of equitable decisions, it’s best to keep the expectations the same across the board. No costumes.

As Halloween approaches, school districts are all making the tough decisions to create positive culture for a holiday, yet keeping the environment comfortable, safe and welcoming to all students.