Today's winner is West Brook Middle School Principal Joan Broe. She gets the award for the following.
PARAMUS, N.J. (CBS) ― A Paramus middle school student was sent home Friday after he came to school dressed up as Jesus for Halloween.I am not much into Halloween. The whole holiday is disruptive to me. Is a school supposed to be a party for one or a place to educate? Tell all the kids to go home and change.For a few hours, Alex Woinski was the messiah of West Brook Middle School, but like the real Jesus, Woinski was condemned, so to speak.
"Sort of like a new remake of what supposedly happened," Woinski told CBS 2.
Decked out in sandals, a robe, fake beard and thorns, the 13-year-old joined 500 other students at his school's Halloween celebration, and on this day, he was the chosen one - to go home.
"It was offensive to some students," Woinski said, when asked what school officials told him the reason for being sent home was.
Woinski says he wore the costume because friends say his long hair makes him a Jesus lookalike, and were not offended by his costume.
The school says thes costume was a disruption and denies its religious nature had anything to do with it.
"I don't think I overreacted," Principal Joan Broe told CBS 2.
Broe said too many students were drawn to the costume, and that was reason enough.
"Children were [asking], where is the boy who is Jesus Christ?" she said. "It was disrupting the education process."
Note- Alex Woinski has a Catholic mother and a Jewish father and recently celebrated his bar mitzvah. Jesus was Jewish, as was his father.
I agree with Mrs. Woinski, this is political correctness run amok. I name West Brook Middle School Principal Joan Broe today's Knucklehead of the Day.
Hat tip- Joanne Jacobs
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Comments (11)
"Well, yeah, only one kid w... (Below threshold)1. Posted by dooz | November 1, 2008 6:45 PM | Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
"Well, yeah, only one kid was sent home, the one with a 'religious' theme. But we're fair in all we do; we are not discriminatory."
Uh-huh. And did you say you have a bridge to sell me?
Was there no one in the school offended by the witches, warlocks, vampires, vamps, Obamas, Bushes--or the celebration in school of an essentially religious holiday? Or don't those offenses count? Puh-LEEZE!
"Knucklehead of the Day"? Could we make that Knucklehead of the Year?
1. Posted by dooz | November 1, 2008 6:45 PM |
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 18:45
2. Posted by peabody3000 | November 1, 2008 6:50 PM | Score: 0 (4 votes cast)
as a complete atheist and secularist, i wholeheartedly agree with this article. what business does a school have judging how much attention a costume could get?
2. Posted by peabody3000 | November 1, 2008 6:50 PM |
Score: 0 (4 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 18:50
3. Posted by dooz | November 1, 2008 6:52 PM | Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
Oh, and for those wondering who could possibly vote for Obama: One answer is Joan Broe.
And for those wondering why there's not a furor over Obama's stifling of the media and payback attack on Joe the Plumber: How is Obama's "fairness" and view of First Amendment free speech inconsistent with what's going on in this school and others?
Could totalitarian takeover happen here? Are you kidding?! It happened just yesterday in Paramus, NJ!
3. Posted by dooz | November 1, 2008 6:52 PM |
Score: 4 (6 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 18:52
4. Posted by peabody3000 | November 1, 2008 7:33 PM | Score: -6 (6 votes cast)
dooz:
this all has nothing at all to do with obama
as for what happened to joe the plumber, do you have any info that the obama campaign had anything at all to do with the scrutiny hes undergone?
4. Posted by peabody3000 | November 1, 2008 7:33 PM |
Score: -6 (6 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 19:33
5. Posted by Myronhalo | November 1, 2008 7:40 PM | Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
I support your nomination. How ignorant and yet biased could this principal be?
5. Posted by Myronhalo | November 1, 2008 7:40 PM |
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 19:40
6. Posted by jmc | November 1, 2008 8:23 PM | Score: -4 (6 votes cast)
I think Sarah Palin should have gotten this. Apparently She was pranked by a Canadian radio station that convinced her she was talking the french president Nicolas Sarkozy.
6. Posted by jmc | November 1, 2008 8:23 PM |
Score: -4 (6 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 20:23
7. Posted by LaMedusa | November 1, 2008 8:35 PM | Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
jmc, that's not such a big deal.
"The well-known duo of Sebastien Trudel and Marc-Antoine Audette have also tricked Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and French president Jacques Chirac."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/Sarkozy_calling.html?showall
7. Posted by LaMedusa | November 1, 2008 8:35 PM |
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 20:35
8. Posted by Steve Schippert | November 1, 2008 10:01 PM | Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
"Children were [asking], where is the boy who is Jesus Christ?" she said. "It was disrupting the education process."
Ummm... Isn't that the point of putting on a costume, to get attention drawn to it? Seems to me it was the most popular costume and perhaps the best at the school.
8. Posted by Steve Schippert | November 1, 2008 10:01 PM |
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 22:01
9. Posted by Codekeyguy
| November 1, 2008 10:19 PM | Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
A little humor:
My kids all went to Catholic School. When Halloween came around I always explained that it was "part of my religion", since I'm IRISH (Celtic/Druid/etc)and one of the Irish nuns backed me up!!
But to the story; a group of parents got upset that Halloween was "celebrating Pagan rituals" and demanded that a "Saints Parade" be substituted. I told the principal, Sister Gregory, that I would dress my son up as St. Lawrence. That was OK until I told her he would be dressed as "St. Lawrence being roasted over the fire pit" the way he was martyred. Consider the gore that costume would have had! Suffice to say that the "Saints Parade" was no longer an issue.
9. Posted by Codekeyguy
| November 1, 2008 10:19 PM |
Score: 3 (3 votes cast)
Posted on November 1, 2008 22:19
10. Posted by RDowens | November 2, 2008 12:28 AM | Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Perhaps had she not sent Jesus home, the students would not have had to be disruptive in asking where he was. Just a thought . . .
10. Posted by RDowens | November 2, 2008 12:28 AM |
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
Posted on November 2, 2008 00:28
11. Posted by Cris Cohen | November 2, 2008 11:15 AM | Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
It's a shame. If nothing else, it could have made for some great headlines in the school newspaper. "Jesus conducts Communion in the cafeteria with Mountain Dew and Tuna Melt."
11. Posted by Cris Cohen | November 2, 2008 11:15 AM |
Score: 1 (1 votes cast)
Posted on November 2, 2008 11:15