Dear NRE Community,
We wanted to share some news about the Fall Festival with you. More specifically, we wanted to let you know that the Fall Festival will look a little different this year. We will continue to have the games and activities as we have in the past; however, we will not be hosting a Haunted House. I know this is disappointing to many of you as the Haunted House has been a rite of passage for many years at NRE.
As we step back and reflect on our core values at NRE and our commitment to keeping kids safe, we do not feel the Haunted House falls inline with these values. We work hard to keep kids safe at NRE and make sure they feel safe socially and emotionally. Having a Haunted House where we are inviting the public into the school with our students in an environment that can not be 100% supervised poses a safety risk. Over the years, we have seen an increase in threats to our students who are working in the haunted house. Students have been grabbed, hit, and yelled obscenities at by not only students but also adults. Last year, this was at an all time high. Over the last few years, the administration received many parent emails and phone calls about the concerns of what we are teaching our children by doing this portion of the Fall Festival.
In addition to the concerns mentioned previously, the district policy prohibits students from bringing any kind of weapon to school, even if it is a toy. So when we host the Haunted House it is confusing to the students who see weapons, blood and gore in our school. It contradicts what we are teaching. In some years, there has been an insane asylum which was not exactly kind and was teasing mental health abilities in others. This does not have a place in our school.
We have received some feedback from students that they are disappointed because they were looking forward to it and we have no doubt this was hard for 6th graders to hear. They had three reasons why it was important to them: 1) it helps them improve their teamwork skills and supports them in making new friends. The great news is they will be doing this next week at Outdoor Ed where they will be going on multiple adventures with many different students in the grade. 2) It helps with their creativity and they have fun. They will still have the opportunity to create for the Fall Festival but in a school safe environment. 3) Fear and thrill can make people feel happy and release dopamine in the brain. While this may be true, it can also cause fear, anxiety, and a flight or fight response which we have seen an uptick in over the last few years.
This was not a decision that we made lightly. We met with our 6th grade teachers, the 10 staff members of our Building Leadership Team, and we presented this to our whole staff as well at the end of last year. We stand behind the decision to not move forward with the Haunted House for the 23-24 school year and moving forward. We will offer many of the same options we have had in the past like the decorated garden, the temporary tattoos, decorating bags, candy, and interactive games for students. We will still have our Halloween parade in the morning on Friday, October 27 at 9am and the Fall Festival will be 5pm - 7pm that evening.
We hope you understand why we put the safety of our students first, the time for their education and state standards second, and we will still offer our fun activities for our community in the end.
Sincerely,
Katie Lynch and Erin Lehnert
Principal and Assistant Principal
