About a year ago, some parents in the Anchorage community began expressing concern about their children's comfort in classrooms during the Christmas holiday season. These families said they felt Christmas music and decorations in the schools outweighed representation of other holidays students celebrate. Community members cited the preponderance of Christian hymns sung by student choirs and Christmas-dominated art projects as compared with other holiday celebrations at school. When complaints were made known to the Anchorage School District, Superintendent Carol Comeau decided it was time to take action.
"It is a wake up call for all of us that we just need to remember we have a very diverse student population and it is getting more diverse all the time. And it's not just racially and ethnically but it's also religious perspectives, language differences and all of that," Comeau said.
A task force was created to revise the existing school district policy regarding religious beliefs and customs. At that time, policy simply stated that all religious views must be tolerated. Parents, teachers and students brought up important factors that played into this issue, and the task force went to the community and used other school districts as a resource to update the language. Their main goal was to make sure every student in the Anchorage School District feels comfortable at school during the holidays. By September 27 of this year, a unanimous decision was made. All holidays will not only be tolerated, but they must be represented neutrally within schools--not too focused on one particular holiday or another.
Rafi Bortnick, a Jewish student at Steller Secondary School, said the change is for the better.
"For Christian kids, they probably already know about Christmas anyway. So focusing on holidays that people don't know about, and not just on holidays," Bortnick said. "I mean it doesn't have to be because of a winter holiday or a spring holiday or any other holidays during the year. I think it's just a good idea for kids to learn about all different cultures."
The policy change is not meant to tell teachers to teach certain religions, and they are not expected to research every religious holiday. But if a student asked to speak about his or her individually celebrated holiday, it should be allowed and responded to positively by both teachers and peers.
"I know it's the most widely accepted but you do have a good check on students that do not celebrate Christmas. And I think that it would be acceptable to view all religious holidays at that time," said Natalie Holland, a junior high and high school teacher at Stellar Secondary School.
The School District is trying to acknowledge Christmas isn't the only religious holiday its students celebrate. The intent is not to influence people's beliefs.
"That's the issue that people were looking for," Comeau said. "We're not proselytizing, we're not trying to convert people, but we also are acknowledging the important place religion is played."
Since the policy change is so new, it's difficult to predict how it will effect this holiday season, if at all.
Holiday neutrality in schools
