Christmas Tree Surprise Quickly Wilts at School

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how quickly we see you disappear.

Second-graders at a Manhattan Beach elementary school showed up Monday and found a fully decorated 7-foot artificial Christmas tree inside their classroom, courtesy of one of the students’ mothers.

A nice gift, the mother thought, to surprise the children. But many of the students in this Pennekamp Elementary School classroom, as well as the teacher, are Jewish.

So about two hours later, the principal was dismantling the tree, branch by branch, after some Jewish parents objected.

Manhattan Beach school administrators are learning what other Southland educators have discovered: Celebrating the holidays has become an intricate juggling act in recent years with such a diverse ethnic and religious mix in the schools.

“Being the Pollyannas that we are, we thought it would be something that would be helping a teacher out and adding fun and enjoyment to the kids,” Pennekamp Principal Dale Keldrauk said Thursday.

Instead, it sparked one of those incidents that everyone wishes had just never happened.

The principal had just transferred from an elementary school on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and didn’t realize that at least 25% of the Manhattan Beach student body is Jewish.

Neither did Janna Catalina, the parent who offered the festive tree. She was taken aback when she picked up her daughter after school Monday and discovered the tree sitting in a box. “It was really upsetting,” Catalina said, who spent hours decorating the tree Saturday as a surprise for teacher Robin Lesky and her 20 students.

And now the tree dispute has reached beyond the school and into the community. Rabbi Steven Silver of Temple Menorah in Redondo Beach said he had at least 15 calls Thursday asking why he is the Grinch who stole the Christmas tree. Many of the Jewish parents at Pennekamp attend his synagogue.

“We’re receiving some very unhappy phone calls,” he said. “I think what it really dramatizes is how little we really understand about each other.”

Silver has tried to explain that a Christmas tree is just as much a symbol of Christ’s birth as a Nativity scene. “For Jewish people, these kinds of things make people feel marginalized. These are not our symbols,” he said. But he believes that Christmas trees can be in classrooms because they are an American symbol. He just wants people to know what Christmas trees mean to Jewish people and what they give up.

But Catalina, whose daughter Carissa attended a private Christian school last year and transferred to Pennekamp this year, says it was just a way to help out in a busy holiday season. “I thought it would be a nice gesture,” she said. Last week she called the principal and told him she wanted to be the elf who decorates her daughter’s classroom.

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So the principal opened the school Saturday and watched Catalina assemble the fake tree and drape it with snowflakes, reindeer, teddy bears and Santa Claus. For balance, Keldrauk suggested that they fashion a Star of David out of a silver garland and put it on the wall, which they did.

On Sunday, the principal called PTA President Tracy Wines about the tree. She immediately suggested taking it down, knowing what a problem it could become. He also called the second-grade teacher, who suggested that they use it as a teaching tool about the holidays and also discuss the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah and the African American festivity of Kwanzaa.

However, the parents’ adverse reaction Monday was overwhelming. So after reading a few stories about different holiday celebrations, Keldrauk called Catalina about removing the tree. She was too busy at work to come to school. So while the students were in their physical education class, the principal took down the tree and boxed it.

“This is a single, isolated incident that I feel has gotten blown out of proportion,” Keldrauk said.

Some parents were pleased. Others were disappointed.

“It upset me,” said Donna Moreau, whose 7-year-old daughter Kayla is in the class. “It’s: What’s next? We’re not going to have anything to celebrate.”

“I think we have a right to respect other cultures and religions while understanding we have to be sensitive to the differences,” said PTA board member Amy Ornstein. “But I think the bottom line is mistakes were made all around.”