Halloween Parties

In honor of today being the school day that most elementary schools had Halloween parties, I'd like to state for the record:

Halloween is the worst day of the year for elementary school teachers.

I'm sure there are some highly energetic, dedicated, fun-loving teachers who love this day best but I was never one of them. It's a day full of sugar, anticipation of sugar, secret candy being snuck into school, costume malfunctions, kids who don't get the memo that costumes are not to be worn until AFTER lunch, over-involved parents showing up way too early, uninvolved parents forgetting to come, religious parents pulling their kids out of school, teachers who dress in wildly inappropriate outfits*, and general chaos.

The next worst days (in order) in the elementary school calendar, from the teacher's perspective, are:

2. Valentine's Day (sugar, sugar, and exclusion)
3. St. Patrick's Day (pinching? Really?)
4. the day before Christmas vacation.

My favorite thing about the costume parades we had every year though was the kid - usually the meanest kid in the class - who would come in some theme pajamas: Ninja Turtles, Spiderman, whatever. There's nothing that softens up a mean kid's image like seeing him in his little kid pajamas.

Not my favorite: little girls in sexy cheerleader or harem girl costumes. Yuck.

*We had one (male) teacher who dressed up as an extremely risque woman two years in a row. Lots of (fake) cleavage. Very inappropriate for a second/third grade teacher. Of course, he was arrested the following year for child molestation.

Two years ago: Proposition 8 (funny how that's not over yet)

Three years ago: Dropout Factories

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