Ask most of the school districts in Johnson County how they feel about “Merry Christmas” or Santa Claus, and the response is the same. Christmas is welcome in most schools, so long as students take care to not play favorites with individual gifts.

But Burleson ISD doesn’t feel that way.

According to BISD Assistant Superintendent Brad Lewis, there is only what he calls “generic holiday cheer in schools.”

Traditional Christmas trees have been stripped of their name and now exist as “holiday trees” in school foyers. Christmas concerts are now deemed “fall concerts,” though, according to Lewis, choir and band students may learn traditional Christmas music as well as secular selections.

“We try to be cognisant of everyone’s beliefs,” Lewis said. He said BISD officials believe it is more important for students to spend time learning in the classroom than celebrating holidays.

“Our most important thing is to educate our kids,” he said.

Other districts don’t share BISD’s policy.

Joshua, Alvarado, Grandview and Cleburne ISDs have nearly mirroring Christmas policies.  

JISD Superintendent Ray Dane and CISD Superintendent Tim Miller said students participate in Christmas activities and still call Christmas trees by their namesake.

Room mothers put together Christmas parties, which students may or may not participate in. Parents can pick their students up from school if they do not wish their students to participate in a Christmas-themed party.

“We try to celebrate the season, you know, not make it a religious thing, but not throw out the religious thing,” Dane said. “That wouldn’t be right. We try to keep it as generic as we can. We don’t want to offend anybody or violate any church and state issues.”

Generally, school districts don’t have written policies about the Christmas holiday.

“It’s never been an issue here that I know of,” Dane said.

AISD Superintendent Chester Juroska said the Christmas spirit is alive and well in AISD. Administrators are careful, he said, not to promote one religion over another, but students and faculty are not forbidden from expressing their beliefs.

“I believe in Santa Claus, and I am 63 years old,” Juroska said. “He’s always been very good to me. I believe that Jesus is the reason for the season, too.”

Such sentiments weren’t exactly expressed by Fort Worth ISD officials recently, however, when FWISD attorney Bertha Bailey Whatley told a Fort Worth newspaper there could be legal concerns associated with the distribution of personal holiday greetings by district students. Officials also said in a memo to teachers that students were not allowed to partake in gift-giving or related activities during the instructional part of the day.

To many, it was almost as if FWISD said Santa didn’t exist.

Prompted by backlash from parents and the community, FWISD later issued a retraction on its website stating, “that was never our intention nor did we ever mean to say children and adults couldn’t exchange holiday greetings and cards. But because we referenced the ‘instructional day’ in an internal memo, that was what was inferred.”

In the retraction, Interim Superintendent Walter Dansby said, “Santa Claus is welcome to visit our schools.” But, Santa is not welcome everywhere.

“He can be in the lobby,” Dansby said. “He can be in the cafeteria. He can be in the auditorium. He can be in the school, outside the school, around the school. But he cannot visit the classroom while the teacher is teaching.”

Grandview ISD Interim Superintendent Dana Marable said she thinks FWISD’s words were taken out of context.

“With Forth Worth ISD, a big deal was made out of it,”  Marable said. “There is a reason we are having this holiday. This is a holy holiday. This is a Christmas holiday.

“Several of our teachers are teaching about Christmas around the world. They work it into their history lessons, and science lessons, and everything else. Our teachers are pretty phenomenal, they do a lot of integrated teaching.”

Rio Vista ISD Superintendent Tim Wright did not directly comment on district policies, but said each school in RVISD was free to include the Christmas holiday as administrators saw fit. When a RVISD caller is put on hold, the “Christmas Station,” 103.7 Lite FM, plays.

Phone calls to other county school districts were not returned as of press time Monday.