Education

School Cancels Mother’s Day To Celebrate Diversity

Flowers and a card (Shutterstock/Alekseenko Yurok)

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Rob Shimshock Education Reporter
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An elementary school is cancelling classroom activities pertaining to Mother’s Day and Father’s Day because of diversity, inclusivity, and a “recent trauma” a student and his or her parents experienced.

Albert McMahon Elementary School in Canada wrote a letter to parents May 1, in which it noted that the school would not celebrate the holidays in class, according to local outlet KXTV, which reported the letter this Monday.

“In an effort to celebrate diversity, inclusivity and also nurture our students who are part of nontraditional families, we have decided to encourage those celebrations to take place at home,” said the letter, posted by Roy Glebe, a parent of a child who attends Albert McMahon, on Facebook. “Due to this, the children will not be making gifts at school to give on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.”

Glebe also expressed his dismay with the school’s decision in the Facebook post.

“This will be the first year that we don’t get gifts crafted with love from our kids, and since we only have one little one now it makes it all that much worse,” explained the parent. “I don’t understand why we, as Canadians, need to give up our traditions that have been passed through generations.”

“I welcome all races and ethnicities, but forcing us to give up things that are important to us as Canadians is crap. And it doesn’t even have anything to do with religion? You cant celebrate your Mom and Dad?”

“The reasoning wasn’t some cabal or some political plan,” said Angus Wilson, superintendent of the school system to which Albert McMahon Elementary School belongs, to KXTV. “Instead, there has been a recent trauma involving a student and its parents.”

Wilson explained to The Daily Caller News Foundation via email that he could not discuss the “trauma” more specifically, due to confidentiality. He also said that the note was “an effort to obfuscate the central issue [the trauma].”

“The teachers in question did this on their own … it does not impact the actual curriculum,” the superintendent said to The DCNF. “If they had, say, cancelled math, that would be different!”

“There is no plan to eliminate Mother’s Day or Halloween or Victoria Day … and this was entirely the initiative of a few teachers at one school. To be clear, many classes in the school continue to celebrate Mother’s Day.”

Wilson said he believes two classes at the elementary school will not celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to the Albert McMahon’s administration but received no comment in time for publication.

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