My great grandparents were from Luxembourg. When they came to the USA, my great grandfather said, "We are Americans now, we have to learn English". They did.

If they are offended by our culture they should leave.

Seattle is a lost city. The moonbat parents there will nod their heads and feel so enlightened and diverse. The normal parents should use this as a teaching moment to warn their kids about the tyranny of liberalism.

All previous posters EXACTLY right! If you don't like the culture here go back to the glorious one you left. And since when is the right NOT to be offended a constitutional right?

What "other cultures" do they have in Seattle that would be offended, for Pete's sake? I mean, who's going to be offended? The Wiccans? People who find ghost costumes "too white"? People who worship the Great Pumpkin, and don't care to see his image tarnished by cheesy costumes and plastic jack-o-lanterns? Gays offended by Tinkerbell getups? What?
What's with the Pacific Coast, anyhow?

There are a couple of cultures that offend me greatly. What's my remedy; the government? It's what's enabling all of this.

One thing the Political Correctness Gestapo repeatedly overlooks in their obsessive effort to ban things that might offend other cultures -- that strangling free speech here deeply offends the American cultural tradition of freedom.

I think we should shut down the schools, so the other cultures that don't have the nice things our schools have will be offended.

The only kids in my son's school who can wear costumes on Halloween are the Kindergartners. I prefer that to my daughter's school where it was allowed, but some of the teachers didn't allow it, so it was a bigger disappointment. If the kids know well in advance that they and the rest of the school won't be able to wear their costumes, it's not as big of a deal.

I'm sure the first year or so of the ban is pretty rough, though.

I think that its unwise to even celebrate Halloween at the school. Its not for religious or cultural concern except that it distracts from the school day. Its a stoopid holiday anyhow!

We wore costumes to school and there was a parade on the playground. Our kids did pretty much the same.

Is it important? Not especially.

This school puzzles me because its demographic is mostly white:

http://www.schooldigger.com/go/WA/schools/0771001195/school.aspx

When I was a kid, schools did not have Halloween costume days - it was no big deal, especially for adults. Jack 'o lanterns were about the only decorations one saw. This has become a huge secular holiday compliments of the breweries, department stores, candy companies, and the other usual suspects. The Peter Pan generation has never stopped trick or treating. Frankly, keep it out of the schools. Ghouls, monsters, zombies and all that nonsense really has no place in classrooms, IMHO.

Save our umbrage for O&Co. We have bigger fish to fry than Halloween costumes in one school in Seattle, for Pete's sake!

Remember, only whole wheat flavored candy allowed in public schools on Halloween.

Halloween was banned from our Wisconsin school years and years ago. Since the students still wanted to celebrate, the upper grades turned it into a "Character Counts" activity where students could dress up as someone who exemplified the good character traits we were promoting. Each student gave an oral report; various curriculum standards were met and then we had a little party. Problem solved!

So they banned costumes to accommodate the beliefs of other cultures? I know fundamentalist Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses who've been offended by Halloween activities at public schools for years. Public school administrators basically tell these folks to pound sand. Next time, they should use the proper buzzwords and the school principals will respond to their requests chop-chop.

too many public school administrators act like this - like a frightened little mouse.

Did anyone read the article:

Lafayette’s principal, Shauna Heath, e-mailed media outlets, including The West Seattle Blog, arguing the decision was made because of the limited instructional time that falls on Halloween this year. Seattle Public Schools observe a half-day of instruction on Wednesday, October 31.

“This decision was made by the entire staff after two deep and detailed discussions. The initial conversation was initiated by staff members who suggested that since Halloween falls this year on a half day of school, we not allow costumes. It takes students a while to change into their costumes, and students are distracted taking away from the already limited instructional time.

When my older kids were little, we did not celebrate Halloween by dressing up as it was pretty much against our religion (and I am a 4th generation Montanan, BTW, with great grandparents immigrating from Scandinavia and Italy. I'm also a Daughter of the Revolution!)

However, I didn't expect the school to accommodate us. I just took them out on that day and we did our own thing.

If I wanted them to be completely free of the influence of public school, I would have home schooled.

Just wondering if #15's group would have allowed some dressed as Achmed, the Dead Terrorist? To Muslims, he would be a good character to emulate.

Somehow, removing a pagan festival from the school does not rattle my cage. They only have a half day of school that day, and because it takes time to change in and out of costumes, the school chose to spend the time on academics. Bravo.

There is so much evil in the world right now, we should be on our knees praying to the true God and not celebrating the spirit of darkness. You may say Halloween means something different now, but why condition children's minds to accept something evil as normal, fun and wholesome.

If parents want their children to celebrate this pagan rite, they can do it in the child's free time, and at night which is traditional.

The only ones who should be offended are wiccans, pagans and druids.

In case no one has noticed, our schools have become public indoctrination centers for numerous liberal causes (gay lifestyles, anthropogenic-caused global warming, peace at any price, revisionist history, et al).
They are ruining our kids and thus, eventually, our nation.
This view is per my wife who taught at the elementary level in the California public school system for 30 years. She fought the good fight against this crap but utimately, it was a losing fight. Bottom line for her, the schools MUST be changed, and changed soon, or it's all over for the USA.

The POINT is they are banning something that is a shared tradition thru out the United States. Next will be Thanksgiving and Christmas and the 4th of July.

We have all seen these bans happening for a phoney reason and always by liberals who what the STATE celebrated and not a holiday.

Hey everyone, let's have a Harvest Party instead! Hooray for the harvest!!! s/o

Please look up the origins of Halloween. Very instructive. This is not an American holiday. Religious cults, luciferianism, witchcraft, voodoo and cannibalism are on the rise. People should take these things into consideration instead of trying to promulgate it in our children - getting them to accept something evil as normal.

Deny it or not, this is a tradition that is, historically, evil. America has turned from the Lord and we will all be called into account. We may be a nation that is now calling good bad, and bad is good. We may be confused but God is not and we will be judged accordingly.

Besides, you may not think you are honoring an evil spirit, but they will take the adoration any way they can get it.

We had some strange beliefs that we catered to when I was growing up that resulted in the ban on halloween costumes in school.

Education.

We did the Halloween thing at home.

If that's the reason for the ban, fine. If it isn't...

Many years ago, they banned Halloween at my daughter's elementary school, so as not to "offend" certain people. At the time, there was a large Muslim/Pakistani demographic at this school, because it was the only grade school to offer language classes to both children who didn't speak English and their parents (in the evenings).
Fine. Then why, forever after, did they have Hindi and Muslim mothers "teaching" about how wonderful their culture was. It angered many AND took time about from instruction time for regular classwork. But that's okay? What if I'm offended?