Information Regarding the Upcoming Halloween Celebration Day - 10-30-26

Good afternoon Anza Trail Parents and Families,

I hope that your week is going well thus far.

As we all know, Halloween is on a Saturday this year (whoop, whoop!), but we will be celebrating it on Friday here at Anza Trail. With that being said, I wanted to provide some clarity regarding expectations pertaining to costumes, face paints and face masks. I want to allow for our students to have a fun and exciting Halloween costume day on Friday, but I also want our students to be mindful of school appropriate and student friendly costumes as well. To avoid any misunderstandings or confusion, here are some allowable and prohibited items for Friday.

Half masks/full face masks are allowed. Face masks such as Batman, Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man, the Incredibles, similar characters, etc. are all acceptable face masks to wear. Please know that students may be asked to please show us their faces underneath their masks for identification, security and safety purposes. Also, inflatable costumes are also allowed to be worn as well.

1-) Face painting is allowed on Friday. Face painting must be school appropriate and student friendly. Any face painting that includes blood, looks gory, looks violent or depicts graphic details, or can be considered offensive are strictly prohibited. For example, the clown face from Stephen King's It would be considered not school appropriate. Any student in violation of these expectations will be asked to wash the paint off their faces.

2-) Face masks such as Michael Myers, Jason, Freddy Krueger, Scary Movie, and masks that are gory, bloody and scary in nature are strictly prohibited. In addition, costume accessories such as knives, firearms, sledgehammers, hand grenades, axes, ice picks, or any accessory that is considered to be a weapon or represents violence is also strictly prohibited.

3-) As in previous Halloween's, all costumes should be school appropriate and respectful of others in nature. Costumes that do not meet this criteria will be addressed on a case by case basis, and please know that some students may be asked to change if I deem it necessary. This hasn't happened yet, but I just want to be transparent so that our students and families know.

In closing, the most important message that I want everyone to take away from this post is that Anza Trail is a K-8 school serving 9 grade levels with a wide variety of age ranges and student emotions. With that said, I ask that everyone please be mindful of their costumes and accessories as to not scare and/or traumatize our little ones, and any student for that matter. I thank everyone in advance for their understanding and support, and I look forward to, like every Halloween, seeing our students showing off their creative and insightful costumes. Every Halloween, they NEVER disappointment!

Have a great rest of your day and wishing everyone a happy, safe and fun Halloween!

Respectfully,