PTO Today

I am the new PTO Pres. for my son's school. I just received some papers regarding the school's Fall Festival. I never attended this festival in the past because we do not celebrate Halloween. So as you can imagine, now being the President I am stuck. I want to speak to our principal about having a Fall Festival that doesn't have so much to do with Halloween, but focuses more on being about Fall. We used to have a Halloween Dance but that was canceled due to older students coming dressed inappropiately, DJ's playing inappropiate music, etc. In its place they started a Haunted Hallway. The kids thought it was great, however I have some major concerns. The paperwork I received say we need to post a waiver of responsiblity at the entrance of the Haunted Hallway. This is because some of the kids who got scared threw cellphones, IPods,etc. at the volunteers who were doing the scaring. The volunteers were also kicked and hit. I really don't want to have to deal with the waiver thing, I am considering doing away with this. I would like some ideas on what could be an equally or more fun event for the students. Is it fair for me to change this because I don't agree with this??? I will take this to our meeting for a vote, but I need some help coming up with an alternative.

I suspect you might be able to lobby to change it for next year. I think the level of poor behavior by the children was ridiculous and wouldn't repeat that fiasco without some much stricter guidelines for both spooks and kooks that reacted so badly. It's kind of late in the planning cycle to change things now but then I'm not at your school and don't know if everyone loves this event or not.
I am not big on personal agendas mixing well with PTOs ... especially the leadership but if this is something you really feel you can't support, perhaps you should step back and get a volunteer that can in order to distance your leadership role.
If it isn't that big a deal to the school--then go ahead and see how people react to a change. You can do the Fall festival and perhaps a Fall dance...

d

We do a harvestfest every year. I have lots of ideas and such for harvestfests. Most of it is not revolving around halloween.

I think you will have to becareful how you word it when it comes to the meetings. There are things I have to "choose my words" wisely at our meetings because I don't believe in certain things either. You don't want to offend anyone because that will bring more upset than it is worth to deal with for anyone. In the same way, you dont want someone to say something to offend you either. I know in our state, even the headstarts aren't aloud to incorporate holidays. They have many reasons but to make it easier they just state no holidays events.

But I think if you have ideas already to present and make it still sound fun and exciting for the kids, you will be successful in your ultimate ending goal.

Thank you so much for your kind words of wisdom. I appreciate your advice. Would you mind sharing some of your Harvestfest ideas with me??? I have some put together already, but there is always room for improvement.

Our school has a Fall Festival sometime around October 31. It is like a carnival, we also do a Haunted House at this event, this event was stopped off and on over the years but always brought back by popular demand. Man made holidays are what we make them, good or bad. I choose to make them all good, after all it is whats in your heart that counts. You can choose to build your fund raiser around the fall harvest with a little make believe thrown in for a jolly good time. Now at ours we have pumpkin paintings, pick up duck, a book and a cake walk, face painting, football and basketball throw, go fish, and Bingo, we had something for every age. We also had much to our delight, little ones dressed in their costumes, Snow White, Belle, Superman and Spiderman. Fun was had by all and yes we had help from those that don't do Halloween after all the school belongs to the community and all that live there. Hope this helps.

"Is it fair for me to change this because I don't agree with this???"

IMO, no, it's not. As the President you need to now understand that you are in charge of a group that involves people of all backgrounds and beliefs. As such you need to be open to ideas that normally you may not be.

That doesn't mean you can't do anything different. But you may want to ask yourself why you want to make the changes...

If you want to do away with the "haunted hallway" because of safety concerns, then that is fair. But you also need to remember that the hallway is likely the area of the event that the kids enjoy the most. Instead of doing away with it, is there a way for it to be changed so that the kinds of things that were happening won't? Changing the entire theme of the event from things that may do with Halloween to onyl Fall... is this for reasons other than your personal beliefs?

IMO, if an event such as this nature is against your beliefs, then why not stay out of it? Hopefully you have an event chair. If you are the event chair then I would have questions why you took on this responsibility having never attended in the past and not being in aggreance with the event in general. So allow you event chair to run it. Let her take care of posting thr waiver. Let her deal with what will and will not be in the hallway...

Does the President have to be at every event run every year?... of course not.

Now on the other hand you do as President need to ensure that the event runs well, that all steps are taken to ensure safety and that no one's beliefs are not taken into account...

Now each year we have a Harvest Hoopla event that sounds similar to yours. This was an idea that I brought to the school two years ago and each year we add on it. We allow the children to wear costumes, but ensure that the constumes are appropriate (nothing scary, nothing gory, no blood, etc.). We have had a gypsie tent, a wizard telling a story, a couple of old crones mixing a brew and event a mad scientists lab. The kids loved all of these. This year we are adding to the event by having a "hanuted hallway", just like your event. We're going to promote it as "for the older kids". We will also try to focus on startling affects and not overly scary or gory things. I also do not award prizes for costumes and make a point of indicating that they are totally optional.

So the point is that steps can be taken to try to limit the concerns that you have, but doing away with the main theme of an event just because you yourself do not agree with the holiday would probably not be the best idea and will likely take away from the kids' fun.

Hope this helps,
PresidentJim

When my son was in pre-K they had a "Bookoween" where all the children dressed up as a character from one of their favorite books. The books were regulated to what was available through the "library" at the establishment.

They had a blast and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Just a thought

I totally agree with President Jim. I really respect your religious beliefs re:Halloween that is fine but you need to respect the feelings of others also. With change comes alot of complaining ,especially when it comes to yearly traditional events. People come to expect certain traditions and look forward to them. Have the VP or other officer lead the event and just get a report so you know what exactly is going on and that it will run smoothly and you know what is going on. How about a Harvest festival? My nephew's school had one a few years ago that was great. A cake walk, square dancers who performed, games, a chili contest, they sold bandanas and sheriffs badges. They also made cardboard cut outs the ones you put your head in and took pictures. It was awesome and not specifically Halloween themed. best of Luck with your event and have a great fall!

At our harvestfest, we have the following:

Last year we had a huge tv plugged in with a few kids movies, but this year I will replace that with someone reading harvest-october based books.

We have 3 tables with a different craft at each table.

3 tables with games. a pumkin toss (bean bags tossed into pumpkins) for instance

a table for tattoos (pta volunteers applying 1 tattoo/student)

a table with a guessing contest (a jar full of candy corns) each class together puts in one guess and the classroom closest wins cookies and cider

a table with donut holes and cider

a table to decorate a paper bag so they can carry all of their things.

This year we are having the 6th grade, because they dont participate in the festivites for the day, each homeroom is givin supplies to decorate a scarecrow and they will be voted on by the kids.

everything is decorated with a harvest theme. Hay bales, apples, pumpkins, scarecrows and decorations made by kids.