Dist. 204 candidate: Celebrate American holidays in classroom
American holidays should be celebrated in the classroom and not pushed aside in favor of political correctness, one candidate for school board in Indian Prairie Unit District 204 says.
Renata Sliva of Naperville, the lone challenger in a field that also features three incumbents running for three seats on the board, said she wants to make sure the freedom to celebrate holidays is not restricted in the district that serves parts of Naperville, Aurora, Bolingbrook and Plainfield. The other candidates are Mark Rising, Lori Price and Justin Karubas.
"I think the holidays express history, many times, and they reflect the soul of the nation, culture of the nation," said Sliva, a 56-year-old stay-at-home mother. "If we are to take it away, we are robbing kids of something. I think that it's very important to keep American holidays in American schools."
Sliva said her emphasis on holidays comes from her personal experience. Born in Czechoslovakia, Sliva says she didn't realize until she came to America that occasions such as Mother's Day originally had been celebrated in her native country.
"I lived in a socialist country and what happened when the communists came to power, they did a lot of changes, and among them was the holidays - that certain holidays were forbidden," Sliva said. "Instead we got some communist holidays celebrating revolution and May Day parades and stuff like that."
Sliva didn't name specific holidays she's concerned about within District 204, but said the district shouldn't skip traditional holidays for political correctness and invent other celebrations instead.
The district isn't doing that because individual schools make their own decisions about holiday celebrations, incumbent Mark Rising said.
"No one is saying you can't have a Valentine's Day party or a Halloween party," said Rising, a 46-year-old sales manager for a health care software company. "Every school is different as far as the population. They're deciding as a school community which holidays to celebrate and I think that's a good thing."
In a district with 22 percent Asian students, 10 percent Hispanic students and 9 percent black students, holidays can become learning opportunities about diversity for kids of all backgrounds, he said.
"They're having discussions to learn about other cultures, which is a great thing," Rising said.
Parents already can give suggestions for which holidays should be marked in school by sharing their views with their parent-teacher association, incumbent Lori Price said.
"It's not really a board issue," Price, a 49-year-old buyer at Anderson's Bookshop, said about holiday celebrations. "Those decisions are left up to the individual PTAs with input from their communities, their school communities."
Mandating that certain holidays be celebrated in the classroom could become unwieldy with students of so many cultural and religious backgrounds, she said.
"It would get out of hand and it takes away from the learning environment, quite frankly," Price said.
Incumbent Justin Karubas, a 41-year-old attorney, said the holiday situation could be improved by giving the community more of a say in setting the school calendar.
"We need more input from the community on the school calendar generally and holidays is just one of the aspects," Karubas said. "I would encourage a deeper process that gets more feedback from the community."