School Cancels Annual Halloween Parade Because It ‘Marginalizes Students Of Color’

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The Benjamin Franklin Day Elementary School in Seattle has canceled its upcoming Halloween parade because it ‘marginalizes’ students of color who, administrators claim, do not celebrate the holiday.

The elementary school, in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, decided to cancel Halloween activities, including its annual pumpkin parade, over concerns about student equity and inclusion.

Specifically, according to the Seattle school district, black males do not celebrate the holiday and, more generally, students of color feel marginalized .

In a newsletter, the school also said that the loud noise levels and crowds can be triggering to some kids.

Brietbart reports: Conservative talk host Jason Rantz, of The Jason Rantz Show on 770 KTTH, wrote at mynorthwest.com Wednesday that parents of children attending Benjamin Franklin Day Elementary (B.F. Day) School received a newsletter from the school on October 8, telling them the annual “Pumpkin Parade” event had been cancelled.

Halloween events create a situation where some students must be excluded for their beliefs, financial status, or life experience. Costume parties often become an uncomfortable event for many children, and they distract students and staff from learning. Large events create changes in schedules with loud noise levels and crowds. Some students experience over stimulation, while others must deal with complex feelings of exclusion. It’s uncomfortable and upsetting for kids.”

“As a school with foundational beliefs around equity for our students and families, we are moving away from our traditional ‘Pumpkin Parade’ event and requesting that students do not come to school in costumes,” the school stated in the newsletter, adding:

“Nothing says equity quite like making every student miss out on the fun because some administrator invented a scenario where students feel excluded,” Rantz responded to the newsletter. “And we wouldn’t want to distract students from learning — except, of course, on National Walkout Day when students were allowed to ditch learning to form a giant peace sign in a political protest on gun violence.”

Rantz said, according to the school’s newsletter, children will instead participate in more inclusive activities such as “thematic units of study about the fall,” and “autumnal artwork” as they share “cozy feelings of the season.”

School principal Stanley Jasko told Fox News Halloween “is a very complex issue for schools.”

He added:

“Yes, I agree this event marginalized our students of color. Several of our students historically opted for an alternate activity in the library while the pumpkin parade took place. This was an isolating situation and not consistent with our values of being an inclusive and safe place for all our students – especially students of color and those with a sensitivity to all the noise and excitement of the parade.”

Rantz observed that, while the newsletter thanks parents for their support, none were consulted in the decision to cancel the “Pumpkin Parade.” Apparently, the school’s Racial Equity Committee pushed the decision onto families.

“At B.F. Day Elementary, there have been discussions about the school’s Pumpkin Parade every year for at least the past five years,” a Seattle Public Schools (SPS) spokesperson told radio host Rantz. “The school Racial Equity Team brought the topic up again in September and the members (with staff input) made the recommendation listed in the newsletter post.”

The spokesperson said black males, in particular, do not celebrate Halloween and the Racial Equity Team made the decision to cancel the event to protect them from feeling excluded.

The spokesperson made the following claim:

Historically, the Pumpkin Parade marginalizes students of color who do not celebrate the holiday. Specifically, these students have requested to be isolated on campus while the event took place. In alliance with SPS’s unwavering commitment to students of color, specifically African American males, the staff is committed to supplanting the Pumpkin Parade with more inclusive and educational opportunities during the school day.

Asian parent David Malkin, whose seven-year-old son attends B.F. Day, told Rantz the cancellation of the Halloween activities is another “exercise in affluent white vanity that is wokeism.”

“I don’t see any way in which this actually addresses any inequities to the extent that there are any inequities,” Malkin told the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH. “You know, this just seems like grandstanding on behalf of the principal and the staff who are predominantly white.”

“I’m sure they don’t want to hear from anyone of any race or ethnicity that doesn’t really want to go along with them in lockstep,” Malkin added.

According to Rantz, the school district believes black children cannot afford Halloween costumes and also have a “cultural aversion” to the holiday.

“It’s a racist belief but one they hold in the name of equity,” he observed. “Meanwhile, all the school is doing is making every student equally miserable.”

10 Comments

  1. You read and listen to the vapid remarks of officials like this Stanley Jasko and you might be tempted to laugh or think he’s just an isolated nut? But he’s the poster child for the whole danged skewed system. ‘Several students opted for alternate activity’.. does he hear himself speaking?

    • I’m not racist at all I’m too interracial. anyway although people think I’m “white”. But I believe different species of people are genetically suited to certain climates and that’s where they should live. Interbreedingbis removing that, an d I don’t think it’s a good thing. Europeans belong in cold climates in the northern hemisphere and Eskimos belong in the North Pole and so on. As it was before. And are thecsjinoes extinct now? When was the last time any lived in am igloo? And is that because businessmen are setting up mining there so they eradicated the eskinoes too so that they don’t have any native title problems? And all of multi cultural ism con job centres around those legal issues They just didn’t think to send all of Australia’s aboriginals to England to live. I’ll bet they regret that oversight

      • No. White people belong in ALL the nations we founded and built. Nations are not land they are what people build on the land. Stone age people did not get to keep anything. There is a price for falling thousands of years behind.

  2. Thank god we have these “education experts” to tackle such “complex issues”. LMFAO
    So the spooks are spooked by spooky day…. hmmm

  3. Is there like an idiot certificate that school Board members have to receive before they can take office? How do these guys get elected?

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