
DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710310661
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  110 lines

MANY SCHOOLS TONING DOWN HALLOWEEN CELEBRATIONS

Ghosts and goblins, beware: You'll have a hard time getting into school today.

Several schools, seeking to maintain the focus on academics and avoid offending religious parents, are de-ghoulifying Halloween.

Some have scaled back observances; others are trying alternatives that steer clear of the H word or witches.

``Halloween has become very controversial, and many school districts are rethinking it,'' said Charles Haynes, a former Virginia religion professor who is scholar in residence at Vanderbilt University's First Amendment Center.

Kelly Cavender will be among the new wave of celebrants.

The first-grader is going to Taylor Elementary School in Norfolk dressed not as Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, but as a crow perched on a cornstalk. That's from ``Those Calculating Crows!'' a book by Old Dominion University professor Alice Wakefield.

Taylor switched from Halloween parades to a dress-as-your-favorite-book-character parade in the early '90s. Kelly's mother, Jenny Cavender, had to troop through 15 stores to find a stuffed black crow, but she's not complaining.

``I absolutely love the way we celebrate because books are a big, big thing to me,'' she said. ``I think this gives them a wonderful mechanism to dress up as something special.''

Other local examples of the toned-down approach:

At Great Bridge Primary School in Chesapeake, Principal Eugene Welton dropped all ``Halloween activities.'' But earlier this week, after some parents complained that the ban was excessive, he decided to allow a ``fall treat'' during lunch today. Great Bridge is also having a half-hour book-character parade tonight.

``My goal is to try to have activities that are enjoyable, that will complement the curriculum and not be offensive to the parents,'' he said.

Indian Lakes Elementary canceled a ``cookies-and-costumes'' event Thursday night. That, Principal Joseph Damus said, was due to organizational problems, not religious objections. A fourth-grade teacher also canceled a Halloween musical she puts on regularly. ``Ultimately, her concern was if it would be objectionable,'' Damus said. ``We'll do something later that is acceptable to everybody.''

Hurst Elementary in Portsmouth still allows kindergartners to wear costumes, but it's eliminating the parade. That's because Hurst has begun a reading program that takes up two 90-minute blocks daily, Principal Gordon Ellsworth said. ``Our teachers are on pretty tight schedules.''

Like Cavender, Stella Jacovides of Virginia Beach is comfortable with the move away from Halloween in school.

A Christian who believes Halloween is a ``satanic holiday,'' Jacovides said schools for too long practiced ``reverse discrimination'' against Christians.

``My concern is that when I was a parent in charge of the Christmas holiday party or winter party, we could never do anything spiritual,'' said Jacovides, whose daughter Maria is a sixth-grader at Baylake Pines Private School. ``It's interesting how everything Christian is taboo and everything else is OK.''

Some schools are still holding Halloween costume parties, and they evoke a range of passions. Just ask Robin Probasco or Sheryl Pyne.

Probasco's son, Joey, is a first-grader at Virginia Beach's Tallwood Elementary. The school will have a costume parade this afternoon, but Joey won't participate. Probasco believes Halloween is a ``high holy day for witches and followers of Satan.''

``I have to take my child out of school because it is not a holiday my family celebrates,'' Probasco said. ``It's not to our liking, but it's the only option that we have.''

Pyne, on the other hand, is leading a party in her daughter Samantha's kindergarten class at Kempsville Elementary in Virginia Beach. It will include costumes, games, treats and props including glow-in-the-dark spider webs.

Pyne wouldn't have it any other way. ``I do think they should still have the parties,'' she said. ``Halloween is the one special day for kids. We're not doing monsters or gory eyeballs. . . .

``An hourlong party here or there isn't going to kill them. . . .I just think that maybe people are taking things way out of context and trying to take a lot of the fun out of being a kid. They're kindergartners, for heaven's sake.''

School systems generally don't have iron-clad Halloween policies, but most discourage celebrations. Virginia Beach, for instance, frowns on children wearing costumes to school. Norfolk wants parties that are ``an outgrowth of the instructional program.'' Suffolk allows 30-minute parties at the end of the day.

Religious schools also vary in their handling of the holiday.

At Christ the King School, a Catholic school in Norfolk, kids will dress up as saints today in conjunction with All Saints' Day on Saturday. At Hebrew Academy of Tidewater, a Jewish school in Virginia Beach, there will be nothing.

Mark Edmundson, a Halloween fan who is also a professor of English at the University of Virginia, regrets the school retreat from Halloween, which he describes as ``an ironic holiday where people dress up as the things they're most frightened of and mock those fears.''

``It gives children so many opportunities to dramatize different interests of theirs, it would be a shame to lose it,'' said Edmundson, who will dress as Richard Nixon.

But Haynes, the Vanderbilt professor, said schools would be wise to consider Halloween alternatives.

``I think we should try to listen to these concerns in ways that preserve the fun but keep these religious parents involved in our schools, which is more important than keeping Halloween,'' he said.

``A society is judged on how sensitive it is to the minorities,'' he said, ``and everybody is a minority on some issue.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot

Kelly Cavender, 6, wears a costume based on the children's book

``Those Calculating Crows!'' Kelly's school, Taylor Elementary,

switched from Halloween parades to book-character parades.

Graphic

Halloween tips

For complete copy, see microfilm KEYWORDS: HALLOWEEN