School Pulls Plug on Decorations After Objections

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 adjacent olive trees, said Wednesday that they were bitter over the thwarting of their show of holiday festivity.

Others, including school officials, Jewish parents, and a local rabbi, said the light 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 in the city. “It disenfranchises and marginalizes non-Christian students who are attending the public school.”

Miller said 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 felt 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 even 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 tell them about 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.

Parents this year, who also said they were unaware of last year’s controversy, strung lights on Saturday. But the school board president, who had heard of the previous year’s complaints, stepped in to stop it. She called a parent at the school, who took the lights down on Sunday morning.

“Well-meaning families want to do something nice,” Black said. “But they need to remember that this is a public building, and lights aren’t going to work.”

One Mariners parent who is Jewish said her children often have felt different from their friends, especially during Christmas, 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,” said Levy. “Education is very important in the Jewish religion, and it is therefore that much more uncomfortable to see religious lights at school.”

That’s why, Levy said, she has always volunteered to come into her children’s classrooms and present the stories of Hannukah, something teachers welcome, she said.

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

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

“In the 27 years that I’ve been an administrator, it comes up every year,” he said. “The good news is, most people are pretty receptive to the concerns.”