When we moved to California, I attended school in the Rowland Heights School District. This was back in the 80s, so things were a little more lax back then. On Halloween, the students would dress up and in elementary school, there’d be a parade. The kindergarteners would start it walking through and picking up the first graders, then on to second grade, etc. I didn’t think much about it until I moved to Hollywood. I noticed that the kids at Fairfax High didn’t dress up for Halloween. It was strange to me, but became normal in my 8 years living of Melrose Ave. When we moved to El Sereno, I expected to see the students celebrate Halloween, but noted that last year, they did not.
At this point, I had just assumed that the LAUSD does not encourage dressing up. I can’t say I blame them. With all the ridiculously inappropriate and racially offensive costumes out there, it would probably be best for the kids to focus on their education. So it was with great interest I read the paper that came home with my kindergartener the other day.
In lieu of a Halloween parade, her school is having a Literacy Parade. The students are encourage to dress as a character from a book. Horror characters are not allowed. To make this all homework-y, the students also have to create a poster or bookcover of the book to carry with them during the parade. Somehow, we parents of kindergarteners are off the hook for finding a character, they’re doing 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. The kids will all wear little monkey ears and tails. My daughter tells me they’re going to recite the story in English and Spanish.
I can’t wait to take pictures.
The Halloween by Anika Malone, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.