Inclusive Holiday Celebrations: Practical Tips for Public Schools

Welcome to your Morning Boost, brought to you by AWB Education. Here we amplify knowledge, widen reach, and broaden impact in education, delivering your daily dose of professional development. This program is sponsored by Grundmeyer Leader Services, where together we are transforming education, one leader at a time. Now get ready to amplify your day with your Morning Boost. Hello, Welcome back to your Morning Boost sponsored by grun Meyer Leader Services. Happy Tuesday and Happy National Maple Syrup Day. I guess this maybe gives me a reason of skip to diet this morning and enjoy a short stack on the way out the door, and then of course spend the rest of the morning trying to avoid eating a nap. But anyway, let's get on with our topic. This morning, I had a listener ask us for some tips on how to celebrate the holidays in our public school in a way that is inclusive to all student I think this is a great topic. Before we dive into those holiday celebrations, it's probably important to remind ourselves about the First Amendments Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a state religion. This means that in our public schools, we must be mindful of religious diversity and avoid promoting any specific religion. And that's the key. It is not about celebrating religions or celebrating cultures. We need to be careful about promoting a specific religion. So if we're looking for inclusive holiday celebrations, there are a few things that we can do. We want to really focus on secular traditions. Think about winter celebrations in general. Emphasize the winter season and the traditions that come with it. We have winter Solstice celebrations. We can celebrate the beauty of nature or the joy of giving, which is common with this time of year. We can also focus on cultural diversity within the traditions that are associated with the holiday season. We have Hanukkah, we have Kwansa, we have many cultural celebrations along with Christmas that happened during this time of year. Celebrating all of these, again not promoting a specific religion, but celebrating this diversity, is something that we can do with within our schools. Another thing we could think about is in community service. Think about ways we can give back to the community. It can be little things. It can be letters to senior citizens at the local senior center. There's many things that can be out there that don't take a lot of money and don't always take a lot of commitment, but can still go a long way is to celebrate that joy of giving. Now, when we talk about decorations, a lot of times we want to try to make our schools feel a litt bit more festive. That's okay. Just go with neutral decorations. Think about decorations that are not overtly religious. You know, snowflakes, winter scenes, colorful lights. Those things are great and those things are not going to again promote a specific religion. Student made decorations are awesome. Anytime we can see student work up on our walls or in our hallways, it's going to help bring some belonging to our school buildings. So encourage students create their own decoration. They can be fun. This can be an engaging activity for students to be able to do things and again works some camaraderie amongst the students in the class. We also have a lot of music and performances. We think about the secular music that we can do in a performance rather than religious significant music if possible, where certainly if we have religious music, just have a variety of those and represent a variety of cultural traditions. All of these performances can really get to the heart of the students that we have in our building and be able to celebrate all of us together. We talk about holiday parties this is common obviously during the month of December, and think about the food choices options that we have. We have to also think about dietary needs of course and safe foods for students, but also think about some cultural preferences. If there's something that we can include in there to help all students feel welcome and feel inclusive within our programming. The same thing with games activities, doing different games in our pe classes, or doing recess or doing other opportunities that we have. What are games that are very inclusive fun for all students. Again, and then of course we will have religious observances that will happen during the months of December. Make sure that we're accommodating absences students if they need to be absent for religious holidays. This is typically going to be an excused absence in most state law, and it's one that we need to allow students to be able to attend. Refrain from organizing our own religious activities. We want to avoid the prayer during school hours or those things in a public school, but we certainly aren't going to restrict those of students want to communicate and collaborate and do those on their own. Just remember, consult with your parents guardians ahead of time, commuting with them. That's going to be really important to be able to make sure that parents are aware of the holiday celebration plans and ask for feedback. Be very sensitive to those individual needs. You may have individual students beliefs and customs. We want to be respectful of their choices. We also want to promote the understanding of tolerance of all students during the holiday season. It's a great opportunity to teach students about different cultures and religions. But consulting with parents and guardians ahead of time, be able to get that feedback, to be able to make sure everybody understands that are ten tiers. To include all and to be able to teach all is going to be a way to be successful. Along a few guidelines, we can create a festive and inclusive atmosphere. It'll celebrate the holiday season while respecting the diversity of your school community. Thank you for your time on listening today, Have a great Tuesday. We will talk with you again tomorrow. That concludes another episode of your Morning Boost. We hope today's daily dose of professional development helps you amplify knowledge, wide in reach, and broaden impact. Your Morning Boost is an AWB Education production brought to you with the generous support of Grundmeier Leader Services. Join us again tomorrow for more. Until then, keep boosting your Impact.