Tree Controversy Comes To Ashland

While PTO president last year at my kid's elementary school, I introduced a new holiday activity for the PTO to work on to replace 'Christmas Bags', which were goodie bags filled with small toys and treats for each child at school. This new activity was placing a 'Giving Tree' near the office of the school with paper tags attached with names of children from the school who were in need of presents for Christmas, etc. Classrooms were also assigned items to have students donate, such as stuffing or cans of green beans, to create a holiday meal for a needy family. The gifts, food, stockings full of hygiene items, and a turkey, provided by PTO, were all loaded into a storage bin and delivered to the families by the school principal. The project was a success and was the best thing PTO had ever done as it was our school community taking care of their own.

This year, the current PTO decided to continue with this new tradition. The same two ladies who had chaired the project were heading it up again, so I found two faux evergreens the Ashland ward was throwing away and donated them to the project. Before Thanksgiving, the ladies set the trees up, attached the name tags, and sent out flyers on the project home to all students. When we all arrived back on school the following Monday, the six-foot tall trees were gone, having been replaced with 18" wicker snowmen. Apparently, one parent complained to the principal about the tree representing Christmas, which could make her non-Christian children feel not welcome at school. So, the principal took it upon herself to remove the trees without discussing the issue with her staff, PTO, or other parents. She says she knows a tree has been deemed a secular item by the Supreme Court, but she decided to remove it as a decorated tree could be offensive to a few of the students as it was suggestive of Christmas.

Needless to say, her bad, knee-jerk decision has caused an uproar not only in our school and community, but has today gone national as the AP has picked it up. The majority of our school are moderate to conservative Christians, so they are outraged as they feel a great project has been tainted, with the tree holding the name tags being demonized as Christian. I don't think the principal, a liberal democrat, understands that this is just one more vilification of Christians in order to be politically correct. While I don't think the principal deserves the outrageous and derogatory calls, emails, and letters she is receiving, I do believe that she made the wrong call on this issue and she will have to deal with the ramifications of her bad decision. I will be attending a meeting with the principal and superintendent on Tuesday, which I expect will be a zoo, so we'll see if this bad decision will be reversed. I know that her action of removing the tree has damaged her relationship with her staff, children at the school, and their parents, of which I am both, and we are now wary of her leadership.