Posted on 01/28/2016 10:37:15 PM PST by Altura Ct.
Valentine's Day is the first that will pass without notice at Bruce Vento Elementary.
Celebrations of Valentine’s Day and the other “dominant holidays†are ending at one St. Paul elementary school, according to a letter from the principal addressed to families.
Principal Scott Masini of Bruce Vento Elementary School, whose student body is overwhelmingly nonwhite, explained in the letter that “my personal feeling is we need to find a way to honor and engage in holidays that are inclusive of our student population.â€
With Valentine’s Day a little more than two weeks away, Masini noted, “I have come to the difficult decision to discontinue the celebration of the dominant holidays until we can come to a better understanding of how the dominant view will suppress someone else’s view.â€
Masini said there will be no cards or treats brought to school to mark Valentine’s Day.
The letter listed the holidays that the East Side school will no longer celebrate as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Masini said the decision was made in consultation with his staff.
“One of the concerns that I have,†Masini wrote, “ … is whether or not this practice is encroaching on the educational opportunities of others and threatening the culture of tolerance and respect for all.â€
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Uh, how about MUSLIMS? Strange how they left them out! /s
How about eradicating the dominance of political correctness?
Muslims hate (Saint) Valentines Day, at least in some muslim countries. Not sure which ones, but it hits the news every year.
They are ruining everything. I know my people were foreigners once a long, long time ago, but no way am I celebrating a non-Christian culture's holidays. I have done Christmas Swedish style and we use other countries' customs like Yule Log but let the reader understand . . . .
My great grandchildren, I have 3, will celebrate diversity and oh Skeeter Davis is on C2C, love that song, End of the World. Very fitting, kind of the end of the world so many of us grew up in. I don't know when was the last time I saw a child playing outside. They do when it snows, but my neighborhood where there were so many happy times for my children, has no more children.
Well, they won't know Skeeter Davis or Karen Carpenter or a lot of the oldies either.
““One of the concerns that I have,†Masini wrote, “ … is whether or not this practice is encroaching on the educational opportunities of others and threatening the culture of tolerance and respect for all.—
Is this for real? Do people really think this way?! That’s crazy. How in the world does a few pretty decorations and the kids bringing in treats a few days a year encroach on “educational opportunities?” More astounding is that anyone could have the thought that doing such an innocuous thing might somehow be threatening and disrespectful to anyone.
I can’t imagine who would be offended by one day set aside to celebrate “love” or in the young kid’s case friendship.
Perhaps you should check for green cards and credentials.
people, send your kids to private school or home school...if you're a grandparent, maybe you can spare money to send the grandkids to private school....
You mean the staff and faculty? I doubt green cards are necessary for any of them. We are talking about Minnesota here. We have a large Asian and Pacific Islander population in St. Paul. We get new immigrants -legal immigrants all the time. I’m sure we have some illegals from South and Central America, but they are a small percentage here. Vento is a school where less than 5% of the students are white (and I bet some of them are immigrants).
They have decided to stop celebrating holidays that few of their students celebrate at home. Most Twin Cities suburban schools stopped celebrating them 25 years ago. I don’t think it is a big deal - in Minnesota. It might be elsewhere in the country. This is why I am for local control over schools. Minnesota schools have different issues than schools elsewhere and St. Paul has issues that are unique to St. Paul.
our poor children...never to have a decent American childhood...
and who runs for the school board?...teachers and their kissing cousins...
Out with the old-—St. Valentine’s (and Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas)——and in with the new and inclusive pantheon-—Baphomet, Allah, Siva and Lucifer? (sarc)
They are all DFL and picked by the teachers union. The union came in with a ballot of candidates to unseat the old board last November. The funny part is that the union was running to reinstate the power to expel violent and disruptive students. The unseated board members were all DFL too. Fun times.
Looking over your responses, it seems your are close to the situation and have information not in the article. As to local control - great, as long as it is smart with some alignment to the general American culture. Allowing polyglot to continue and be enhanced at every juncture only contributes to the hastening of the day everything dissolves into chaos. Had your thinking been prevalent during the mass European immigration of the late 19th and early 20th Century, America would have long ago broken up into enclaves of various languages/cultures fighting to keep their culture and avoid integration to the larger American culture. We also would have not been able to fight WW2 due to large populations that had not become Americans but were still identifying with their former country.
“One of the concerns that I have,”Masini wrote, “is whether or not this practice is encroaching on the educational opportunities of others and threatening the culture of tolerance and respect for all”
What bull spit. I defy anyone to show me how decorations, dressing up, or having a classroom party with candy or whatever is going to prevent someone from getting an education.
As for “threatening the culture of tolerance”, isn’t it funny that always translates into “we’ll chuck all our traditions and ruin the fun for all the rest of the kids because a one or two (or their parents) don’t like it.” It never seems to mean “these things are part of our culture and traditions, and we enjoy celebrating them. We understand you might not enjoy them yourself, and you are free not to participate.”
The mass migration from Europe was very different, I’d say easier, because the vast majority of those immigrants were Christian. They were different, but not so different, from the Americans they joined here. They were often poor, but hard working, as are many of the families at Vento. I bet my German immigrant great-grand parents couldn’t have afforded for each of their children to bring treats or cards or gifts to all their classmates. I suspect that part of the reason Vento is doing this is to take pressure off families. Not to mention the population of homeless, recently homeless and foster care children at Vento.
These students come from all over the world. The main focus of schools like Vento is to foster a sense of community amoung the children and families. They do a good job of teaching English considering the number of languages their students speak. By the time they reach high school most of them will be playing basketball or singing in the choir or any of the other things kids here do.
The biggest gap is and will continue to be African American students. Minnesota has the largest achievement gap in the country by far. I’ve yet to hear anyone offer anything approaching a solution for that. I think Vento is around 35 to 40% black. Being the principal there would not be an easy job.
Correctly stated it should be: BAN CHRISTIAN CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN STATE!
(Because Christians are evil, intolerant, bigoted, racist, hateful, spiteful, proselytizing, war-loving, torturer-loving invaders.)
Islam and Islamic state governance is fine because it is peaceful, respectful, inclusive, and celebrates diversity.
Common Core math - adds up to 100.02. I told my granddaughters who were being taught with Common Core that close enough wouldn’t work if you built a bridge that was close enough. And that close enough was only good for horseshoes, hand grenades and atom bombs.
I might add government “work”.
Pig’s Eye? In A Pig’s Ass!
On another tack, not a fan of the Beatles but cancelling St. Valentine’s Day leaves me to conclude; all you don’t need is love.
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