AMESBURY — Despite growing uproar from displeased parents, leading school officials remain tight-lipped over a recent, seemingly last-minute change removing Thursday’s traditional Halloween Parade at Cashman Elementary.
The announcement to swap out the popular parade with what is being called a STEM Festival, was made Monday giving parents little time to pivot before Halloween.
After numerous parents took to social media to voice displeasure over the decision, with one post on the Facebook group Amesbury Talks reaching over 80 comments, Cashman Principal Amy Mitchell emailed a message to families explaining the decision Wednesday.
“Over the past couple of days I have received many emails and requests for meetings from families looking to understand why we have made the change to a Fall STEM Festival,” Mitchell said in the statement to families.
She said, in the email, that the goal was to make a more hands-on, inclusive celebration, sharing some issues they had seen with the Halloween Parade.
“This manner of thinking was based on our experiences from last year where we saw a decrease in student attendance on this day due in part to the age of our students, economic challenges, as well as students experiencing social pressure around having a ‘good enough’ costume,” Mitchell said.
When pressed for further comment, Mitchell said the statement is all she is able to share on the issue at the moment.
The explanation was unsatisfactory to many parents, including Nicole Stenclik. As the mother of a Cashman third-grader, she said she was disheartened to learn that her child would not be participating in a Halloween Parade after doing so her first three years in the district.
“The whole reasoning was very bizarre,” Stenclik said.
Not satisfied with the emailed response, Stenclik reached out for clarification. But her efforts led to more confusion saying she received conflicting messages from Mitchell and Superintendent Elizabeth McAndrews. She said her first discussion was with Mitchell.
“I had let her know that it was being perceived by many parents as a few families being concerned about Halloween not being an inclusive holiday and kind of making this huge change for all students with really no notice or transparency and she said no, like that’s not it at all,” Stenclik said.
She said she got the exact opposite message from McAndrews.
“Then I spoke to the superintendent who said that was exactly what had happened, that there was concern about certain families not being able to participate because of religious reasons or other families able to get their kids costumes for financial reasons, and so it was just really disheartening,” Stenclik said.
Another issue she had with the new change is the need for parents to pass a CORI background check to attend, as mentioned in the initial notice parents received Monday.
“Please check in with our front office to ensure that you have a current CORI on file if you are able to join us,” Monday’s statement read.
A name-based criminal record check (CORI) returns information on available Massachusetts arraignments. This type of criminal record check is done by submitting the name and date of birth for a person, according to mass.gov.
“Most parents don’t have a CORI on file, and this doesn’t really leave them adequate time to go through the process of getting one on file. It goes to the police department. So it just felt like it was a pretty abrupt decision,” Stenclik said.
She said the issue is Cashman-specific because only the Cashman School Council raised concerns.
“Apparently it hasn’t raised a concern at any other school,” Stenclik said.
When asked for comment, McAndrews said she was in a meeting and deferred to the statement released by Mitchell saying she worked on it with her.
The full statement can be found at https://secure.smore.com/n/v706z