First, Homecoming, Now Halloween

I don't typically read the Cottage Grove columns in the Herald Independent, so it wasn't until Sunday morning that the headline in Jack Henrich's Village View broke through:

Halloween has been cancelled in part of Cottage Grove

My first nano-thought was that the Village or Town had called off door-to-door trick-or-treating for some public safety reason. But, no.

Then it occurred to me that maybe he's making a wisecrack in reference to the Village Board's decision to appoint a new president (and thus postpone a 'divisive' election for a year - aren't all elections inherently divisive, especially when you lose). You know, something like, "we don't need Halloween because the Board is providing the spooky stuff this year." But, no, no.

Thank you for your email expressing your and the children's disappointment with not having the Halloween costume dress up this year at Cottage Grove School. This was not an easy decision and many factors came into consideration before deciding on not having the regular costumes for Halloween.

Finally, as I began to read the column, it hit me! Brilliant! He's written a parody of the MG high school decision to cancel Homecoming. I was annoyed that I didn't think of writing one. But, no, no, no.

It finally dawns on me that he is quoting an actual email from Barbara Berg, principal of the Cottage Grove Elementary School. She is explaining why she really and truly canceled Halloween. It seems she has been itching to get rid of this distraction and the economy has supplied the opportunity.

Since we are not in school for 3 days before Halloween it seemed to be a good year not to have families have to purchase costumes for this party.....We are hoping these changes will help to minimize the disruption to the learning that day but still allow students to "have fun".

At this point I had to stop and convince myself again that Henrich is not displaying signs of comedic genius, but rather is reporting on actual events.

Coming on the heels of the MGHS principal's decision to cancel Homecoming, one begins to wonder whether education schools teach classes on eliminating fun from school. And what's with the apparently ironic use of quote marks around the phrase "have fun"? Is fun necessarily inconsistent with learning?

***

Principal Berg deserves credit for responding to the emails, which is more than I got in response to my protest of the Homecoming cancellation from Principal Brost at the high school (although I did receive responses from most of the school board).