School Takes Down Holiday Lights

Despite objections last year--and the state’s power crisis--parents put up holiday lights at a Newport Beach public school, but were compelled to take them down after a warning from the school board president.

Many parents, who spent hours Saturday cleaning the grounds at Mariners Elementary School and stringing colored lights around the buildings and white lights in olive trees, were bitter Wednesday over the thwarting of their show of holiday spirit.

Others, including school officials, Jewish parents and a rabbi, said the incident is a sign that parents and community members should be aware of non-Christian viewpoints--especially considering that a parent objected last year when lights were put up.

“It’s a provocative act to put the lights up,” said Rabbi Mark Miller of Temple Bat Yahm. “It disenfranchises and marginalizes non-Christian students who are attending the public school.”

Miller said that displaying lights, even if they are called holiday lights and not Christmas lights, is an obvious reference to the birth of Christ, and should not be permitted at a public school.

But the head of the school’s parent foundation disagreed, and defended the parent-purchased lights.

“I don’t view lights to be religious,” said Graham Tingler, who helped string the lights this year and said he was unaware of the controversy last year. “It was just a purely festive, ‘Let’s get in the spirit of the season’ thing.”

Tingler said he was demoralized when he learned that school board President Dana Black had asked parents to remove the lights.

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “There are so few opportunities today for schools to show spirit and pride. We’re not advocating prayer in the schools. There’s a big difference between prayer in the schools and holiday lights.”

Other parents agreed.

Ann Ramser, past president of the school’s foundation, said she was aware that a parent had complained last year, but because she did not view the lights as a religious expression, she did not take the complaint seriously.

After parents strung the lights last year, a former parent at the school called and complained, and threatened to sue if the lights were not taken down, Ramser said.

“Last year, we thought it was just one person trying to spoil it for everybody else,” Ramser said. “We have put lights up in the past, and it was never an issue. It happens to be a holiday season . . . but it’s hard to please everyone.”

However, the superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District said he heard of many complaints last year about the Mariners lights. Supt. Robert Barbot said he called the campus last year to discuss the complaints, and was told that some of the lights had been removed and that parents were now happy.

Though the lights remained, a suit was never filed.

Campus officials were not available for comment. Mariners has a new principal this year.

The school board president, who had heard of the previous year’s complaints, stepped in to stop the display. She called a parent at the school, who took the lights down Sunday.

“Well-meaning families want to do something nice,” Black said. “But they need to remember that this is a public building.”

One Mariners parent who is Jewish said that her children often felt different from their friends, especially during the Christmas season, when lights, carols and Christmas trees are ubiquitous. Public school is one place, Marisa Levy said, where non-Christian children should feel free of that sense of being left out.

The lights are “a symbol, in the eyes of those who are passing by, for Christianity,” Levy said. “Education is very important in the Jewish religion, and it is therefore that more uncomfortable to see religious lights at school.”

That’s why, Levy said, she volunteers to present the story of Hannukah in her children’s classrooms, which teachers welcome.

“I have always found the Newport-Mesa community to be very open and receptive to people of all faiths,” she said.

Barbot said controversy over holiday expressions is a frequent issue in schools.