A Cup of Noodles and mustard bottle strolled past while a young, smiling witch shook hands with substitute teacher Tom Bennett, a knight.
“It’s nice to be someone different for a day,” he said. “That’s probably why everyone wants to do it more than once a year.”
Second-graders in Nancy Pozo-Jones’ class baked spooky cupcakes and other treats.
Pozo-Jones described her costume as that of a nice witch, although her students quickly pointed out that she was wearing spider web earrings with a bat dangling from her necklace.
Some of her students are immigrants, and she said Halloween has been particularly instructive for them.
“Traditions exist in every culture, and this is one of ours,” she said.
Her students took their stroll around the courtyard and eagerly embraced the judges’ praise.
Second-grader Dino Hartoonestepaian said he thought his SpongeBob costume was cool, but that he wanted to be a ghost.
“My mom decided, ‘Let’s do SpongeBob,’” he said.
Schools have tightened Halloween procedure and do not allow masks or toy weapons to be brought to school.
“I do think kids are exposed to more violence than I’d like,” said Nayiri Nahabedian, a Glendale Unified School District board member, and a costume judge. “I think we need to increase their options . . . in the form of what [students] can be in their real lives.”
But Mardy Graves used scary costumes to her first-grade students’ advantage.
The students tallied costumes to build a graph and used fractions to understand the number of animal costumes, pretty, scary, action or “other” outfits.
“We’ve also talked a little bit about the history, that it’s a festival to celebrate fall,” she said.
Second-grader Ashmith Bhabanan described his ninja-style costume, bought at a Halloween supply store, as an ice wolf.
“I tried like 10 characters,” he said.
MAX ZIMBERT covers education. He may be reached at (818) 637-3215 or by e-mail at max.zimbert@latimes.com.
