Many local, state, county, and federal governments have prevented schools from allowing celebrations; Halloween, thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. Do you think that it is right for the government to do this? Or are they violating their own so called 'separation of church and state' policies? OR is the school system strictly now thought of as a government agency?

I think back with great fondness at being able to decorate the schoolroom and participate in a school play, and I learned a lot in doing it. (In one Christmas play that I recall, we had a muslim and a jew child taking part in it, and their parents were just as proud as mine were. It was also completely voluntary to participate. Where will it end? Can we no longer perform Shakespeare because the dialog speaks of spirits?)

My wife is a teacher at a public school and they do have a kind of Holloween parade where the teachers and kids dress up in costumes...and away back when I was in school they had a kind of Holloween carnival at the school put on by the PTA as I recall... It was fun.

There's also a winter show at her school where each class makes a presentation of songs and plays... It's kind of a cultural festival in a way where stories from different cultures are shared. They've had Jewish customs presented say on the Hannukah and some Christmas material.

So I haven't seen the government come down on that particular thing locally where I live as yet... They are more concerned though with the test scores of the students at statewide exams.

- Art

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- Johannes Kepler

I think this will all end when everyone is uptight with a stick in their *cobbler* . I haven't had any problems with these celebrations, though some would argue that we should celebrate more customs I guess it's kind of hard for governments to give more days off and observe more holidays of different cultures. In fact I think that the school district back home started recorgnizing Jewish holidays a few years ago.

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