No Clowns or Pokémon Go Cards at Birmingham Schools

BIRMINGHAM, MI — Students at two elementary schools in the Birmingham district will be turned away from school-sponsored Halloween festivities if they come dressed as clowns, and they’ve been asked to leave their Pokémon Go cards at home, too.

In an email to parents, Beverly Elementary school Principal Jami Hitchcock said clown costumes won’t be allowed, nor wil costumes that include blood, violent messages, weapons, or scary masks.

“Yesterday, it was brought to our attention that some third-grade students were discussing creepy clowns,” Hitchcock wrote. “Apparently, there was a discussion that occurred with a few students on the playground during third-grade lunch recess yesterday and today during fifth-grade recess. As a result, many students returned from recess afraid of the potential for clowns to come to Beverly to do harm.”

Pembroke Elementary School Principal Susan Crocker wrote in an email that “in light of the recent ‘clown prankings’ in the area and on the news, clown costumes will not be allowed.”

Adults who show up at the Halloween costume parade and party dressed as clowns will not be allowed to enter the building, and children who dress up as clowns “will be r remain in the office until a change of clothes is brought from home.”

Crocker said in her email that Pokémon cards “have become a distraction at school” and students are asked to leave them at home.

“Learning is being interrupted in classrooms, lunches are not being eaten in the lunchroom, students have become less active at recess and too much time is being used to mediate/investigate social conflicts and/or ‘missing’ cards,” she wrote in an email Monday.

Photo by Shawn Campbell via Flickr Commons