Interim Yonkers superintendent pulls plug on holiday decorations
By JAYNE J. FELD
December 10, 2002
YONKERS — All ornamentation with a message stronger than a generic "happy holidays" or "season's greetings" has been banned from the city's public schools.
Yonkers interim Superintendent Angelo Petrone directed officials last week to remove all Hanukkah menorahs, Christmas trees and specific holiday decorations from the schools. Some parents and teachers are wondering why.
Parent Amanda Pendleton, who visited the PEARLS Hawthorne School on Friday during its multicultural holiday assembly, said everyone from parents and educators to children was surprised and upset to hear of the new rule.
"Anybody who heard it thought it was a joke at first; they couldn't believe it," said Pendleton, whose daughter is a PEARLS fifth-grader. "Then they had to literally tear everything off the walls."
Although students were permitted to decorate two Christmas trees with trimmings representing diverse cultures during the assemblies, they were told that the trees would have to go by day's end, she said.
December holidays spark controversies over the display of symbols and the teaching of religions in school districts nationwide, said Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va.
Often, complaints or lawsuits alleging the over-emphasis of Christmas prompt districts either to coat schools with decorations from all religions that do not necessarily tie in to lesson plans, or to rid schools of religious decorations and teachings. Both solutions are bad, he said. The First Amendment permits schools to teach about world religions as long as one is not promoted above others.
"Unfortunately, these actions are overreactions that come out of confusion about what the First Amendment requires and the refusal by schools to address religion properly throughout the school year," Haynes said. "Focusing on December is a losing game. Whatever they do is going to cause controversy."
Locally, Brewster officials found themselves in a similar situation last year. After two parents complained about an undecorated Christmas tree at the Garden Street Elementary School, it was removed. Other parents then complained. Brewster's policy prohibits the display of religious symbols except as classroom teaching aids. It allows secular symbols in schools. But despite years of federal court rulings allowing Christmas trees on public property, Brewster trustees feared lawsuits.
Neither a lawsuit nor parents' complaints precipitated the change in Yonkers, said district spokesman Eric Schoen. Petrone, principal at Yonkers Middle-High School until last month, required all decorations there to be religion-neutral. When he found out other schools did not follow the same policy, he decided to issue the order, Schoen said. Holiday assemblies featuring religious songs, poems and reports on holidays will still be permitted.
Marla Hurban, a member of the Yonkers PTA Council, said she was leading a discussion about Hanukkah on Friday in one of her children's classrooms when she learned about the district's new ban of holiday decorations.
She said teachers scrapped lesson plans involving holiday decorations and had to take down bulletin boards loaded with children's artwork. Children, including her own son, were upset.
"I'm extremely disappointed," said Hurban, whose children attend Montessori 11 School. "One of the reasons I send my children to public schools is to learn about different cultures and to be sensitive to other people's needs."
Steve Frey, president of the Yonkers Federation of Teachers, said it has been a long-standing tradition for teachers to use religious holidays to teach respect for all cultures and to emphasize the uniqueness as well as similarities among different religions and cultures in the diverse district of 26,000 students.
"These holidays are used to facilitate a lot of learning," Frey said. "There ought to be an explanation given to the community, teachers and ultimately the students. Students are going to be asking questions."
nyjournalnews.com |
