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After complaint, principals to be cautioned about religious celebrations in classrooms

 
Published Jan. 14, 2015

Public school is not the place to be celebrating religious holidays.

That's the message going to Pasco County school principals after a parent complained that his daughter was sent to the principal's office as her class had a Christmas party in December. The girl is Jewish.

Deputy superintendent Ray Gadd said he's investigating the complaint, which appears to be isolated. Even so, Gadd said, the situation opened the door for him to remind school leaders — many of whom are relatively new to their posts — about what's appropriate when it comes to religion, holidays and classroom activities.

"The bottom line for me is that celebrations in school should be kept to a minimum," Gadd said.

If a teacher decides to have some sort of party, he continued, it should be short, inclusive of all children and not focused on a specific religion. It would be fine to teach kids about the history, music and other aspects of big holidays, he said, but even then the lessons should look at a variety of cultures and religions, remain secular and avoid preaching.

"Our job is to educate kids," Gadd said. "If at the end of the day they want to have cupcakes or something like that to celebrate break, great. But let's not get carried away."

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Superintendent Kurt Browning is headed to Tallahassee at the end of January to meet with Gov. Rick Scott about education issues. He plans to pressure his former boss about testing and employee evaluations.

During a recent meeting with the United School Employees of Pasco-Retired, Browning railed against the state's mandate that half of teacher evaluations must be based on student test results, noting that the requirement simply forces districts to make kids take more tests.

Exams aren't bad, he said. But they need to have some meaning, and not just be a data point to fit into an evaluation system that's "arbitrary and capricious."

"I think the system is broken. I think it's unfair," Browning said. "It doesn't really evaluate teachers for what they do."

He told the group he was hopeful that Scott, who lately has said he wants to improve public education, will respond positively.

• • •

On the home front, Browning wants to tackle the age-old challenge of getting more parents involved in their children's education.

He's not talking about spending time in the classroom. Rather, Browning would like to see more parents teaching their children basics and beyond, so they're ready for school.

Too many students enter kindergarten two or more years behind, according to state standards, he said. "We have to catch them up on things that they should know before they get to school."

To push the concept, the superintendent is preparing a phone message for families of young children, encouraging them to do things like teaching their kids to count to 10.

"Parents need to understand it is a partnership," Browning said. "We cannot educate kids the way they need to be educated … unless parents are involved."

Contact Jeffrey S. Solochek at jsolochek@tampabay.com or (813) 909-4614. Follow @jeffsolochek.