HALIFAX -- Parents of some children at a Halifax elementary school are upset with a decision to cancel an annual Halloween tradition.
There were no kids in Halloween costumes at Inglis Street Elementary School on Thursday and the principal won't explain why.
"Our school will not be having a Halloween parade this year."
That's the email Jennifer Adcock received Wednesday evening from her child's Grade 4 homeroom teacher.
She was disappointed to hear a Halloween tradition -- a costume parade for the kids normally held on Halloween day -- was cancelled.
"Well, I was surprised at first because the Halloween parade has been a tradition at the school; it's something that the kids look forward to," Adcock said.
The email also discourages costumes, saying students could wear orange and black instead.
Adcock wrote the school principal to ask why, but didn't hear back.
She says taking away something the kids love doesn't make sense to her.
"It's a chance for kids to be kids, and I think maybe that's something that's forgotten," Adcock said. "Halloween is about children, and having fun, period."
CTV News reached out to principal Matthew Hartlen, who refused to answer questions in an interview, instead commenting by email.
"We have not cancelled Halloween at Inglis Street School," he wrote. "We had a school-wide costume celebration last week and there are children here today wearing costumes."
A spokesperson for the Halifax Regional Centre for Education says there is no overreaching policy when it comes to Halloween and that individual schools and even individual teachers can decide how they want to mark the occasion in the classroom.
At the end of the school day, parents confirmed there was no costume parade -- only disappointment.
"It was a pretty big tradition and a lot of fun," said parent Laura MacIntyre. "The kids looked forward to Halloween at school and seeing all their friends dressed up."
Subarna Saha would like to see a Halloween costume parade at Inglis Street School.
"Before here, we were in the U.K., so there they used to do it, they used to do it," Saha said. "They used to dress up in the Halloween dress as you know."
Inglis Street Elementary has a culturally-diverse population, and while it's not clear why the parade was cancelled, Adcock says that diversity is all the more reason to mark Halloween.
"Because it's a chance for anybody to use their wildest imaginations," Adcock said.
Earlier this week, an elementary school in Toronto reversed its decision to stop Halloween celebrations after an uproar from disappointed parents and children.
Adcock and some of the other parents are hoping that same kind of reversal will happen at the school, or that the school will at least explain why the decision was made, and have a conversation about it.
