Mothers are squaring off and sounding off over the cancellation of their kids' field trip to see Santa Claus. A South Bay school may see a mass student walkout on Friday if the controversy is not resolved.The Santa storm started brewing in San Jose's Cambrian School District after one parent complained about the long-standing tradition. An apparent war over Christmas has taken over the local elementary school and the battle lines are being drawn.Parents are pitted against each other at Sartorette Elementary School. Students in the three kindergarten classes have taken a field trip to Big E Cafe every December over the past several years to drink hot chocolate and visit Santa.This year the field trip was cancelled after a mother named Talia, who did not want to use her last name, went to the principal and school board over her concerns the Christmas tradition was not inclusive.In a letter to other parents, Talia said she did not like the idea of her 5-year-old feeling left out of an assignment, being that she is the only Jewish student in the class."The field trip was tied to two writing workshops that were supposed to be spent writing to Santa," she said. "There was also a reindeer party and other Christmas related activities. There was nothing done for the Diwali festival. We have two Hindu girls in our class. There was nothing done for Ramadan. We have a Muslim boy in our class."Talia says she was satisfied when the principal told her the Dear Santa letters would be changed to thank you letters to the owner of the coffee shop and arrangements would be made for Santa to be at the Big E cafe after hours. But eventually the whole field trip was cancelled.Talia has other parents among her supporters."I think in the world of intolerance that we live in anything we can do to promote tolerance and understanding is gonna be a benefit to everybody," said parent Bao Nguyen.Many parents say Talia's complaints and the school board's actions are actually intolerant of Christmas.Vanessa House volunteers every day in her son's kindergarten class. She says they do acknowledge and teach about other religions and cultures in her class by doing similar lessons in December on Diwali, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.Other parents say the whole point of the field trip has been twisted about by rumors and half-truths."It is not a field trip to go see Santa because it never was," said parent Vitina Mandella. "The letter writing assignment was never a Santa writing assignment it is an assignment for the children to write letters and they can choose to write letters to Santa or a grandparent or a friend."House added, "She talks about having all diverse traditions and holidays but yet our Christmas now has been taken away, it's been removed now. So how can it be diverse if Christmas is not even you know, mentioned."Parents attended a school board meeting Thursday night and many told ABC7 News they're pulling their kids from class Friday and marching them down to the cafe with or without the school's permission in protest. ||||| SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) — Parents of San Jose school kids confronted a school board Thursday night after a decision to cancel a field trip to see Santa Claus followed a complaint by a Jewish mother who objected to the school-sponsored outing. 
 
 The visit to Santa, along with a ‘Dear Santa’ assignment, was a decade-long tradition at Sartorette Elementary School, part of San Jose’s Cambrian School District. 
 
 Last week, the Sartorette staff informed parents the school would suspend the outing to see Santa at a local coffee shop after a Jewish mother, who identified herself only as Talia, complained to the school board that the district was celebrating one religion over others. 
 
 “We need to teach about all the holidays,” said Talia. ”We live in a global society.” 
 
 Talia said as a result of her complaint and the decision by the school board, other parents began to bully her. 
 
 “I had some parents that called me a communist, that said that I didn’t want any holidays in the school.” 
 
 Some parents are blaming Talia for ruining Christmas. “It’s really scary how one parent can go and voice her opinion and then everything gets shut down,” said parent Vanessa Howes. 
 
 “I think that’s it’s really sad that the school district didn’t ask for other opinions,” said parent Melanie Scott. 
 
 Cambrian School District Superintendent Carrie Andrews told reporters outside Thursday night’s school board meeting that what began as a tradition 10 years ago is not necessarily the right thing to do today. “The bigger conversation that needs to be had is really looking at the diversity of our beliefs and our customs and making sure we instill that, and that’s what public schools need to be doing.” 
 
 Talia said she is not ruining Christmas for the kids in her child’s school. “No, Santa will be there. I’m not going around to anybody’s homes asking them not to celebrate Christmas. I’m not going to go to anyone’s church or private school, but in a public school we have to design curriculum to fit everybody.” 
 
 Parents voiced their opinions to the school board Thursday night, but the board was unable to take any action on the issue because it was not on the agenda. Some parents vowed before the meeting to walk out of school in protest Friday if the decision wasn’t reversed, but not one parent told the board they planned to go through with that threat Thursday night. ||||| SAN JOSE -- A Santa storm is brewing in San Jose. 
 
 After a field trip to visit Santa Claus by kindergarten students at Sartorette Elementary School was canceled by administrators on the heels of a complaint by one Jewish mother, things are getting ugly down on Woodford Drive. 
 
 Angry parents plan to descend on the board meeting Thursday, threatening a student walkout Friday if the Cambrian School District's board fails to reinstate the annual Santa trip. The woman who made the complaint, who identified herself only as Talia and declined to be interviewed Wednesday evening, stood by her claim that having kids write or visit Santa unfairly imposes one religion on all students. She fired off an angry letter Dec. 7 to fellow parents at the charter school, alleging she was "ambushed by a group of moms from Ms. Kay's class" who she said yelled at her for "ruining Santa for the kids." 
 
 It's difficult to say how much support Talia has among parents in her drive to end the Santa activities, which include a short walk to a nearby coffee shop Friday morning where the kids enjoy hot cocoa and sit on Santa's lap. 
 
 Talia has released emails of support from a few fellow parents, including one named Katie who wrote: "You didn't ruin Santa for anybody. If parents want their kids to see Santa, they should be doing it on their own time, not on a school field trip." 
 
 Meanwhile, her opponents have unfriended her on Facebook and accuse Talia of starting "the war on Christmas." Several parents reached by this newspaper expressed strong opposition to both Talia's position and the district's decision to support her. 
 
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 "It's very upsetting that the district would act after taking one person's opinion and not talking to the 500 other families at the school," said Melanie Scott, mother of a first-grader who took the field trip last year. "But we're not fighting this woman, in particular; we're against the school board's decision. And that's why we're doing the walkout, because they didn't give us a say." 
 
 In an email exchange with Scott, Talia wrote that "the 'Dear Santa' assignment, field trip, and reindeer party included 1 religion that does NOT represent all of the children in the class. As a result, the children who do not celebrate end up feeling left out." 
 
 Talia's emails suggest that she believes having the entire class meet with or write to Santa would be unfair to those children who may see him as a symbol of a Christian holiday they don't believe in. "I realize that you don't know how it feels, but I do because I lived it," Talia wrote to Scott. "Maybe you should ask around. Speak to the nanny of the girl from Ms. Kay's class who grew up a Jehovah's Witness, or a religious Christian who finds the secular Christmas offensive, or a Muslim. Let the classroom be the one safe place where everyone feels included." 
 
 Efforts late Wednesday to reach the district's superintendent Carrie Andrews were unsuccessful. She had previously responded to Talia's complaint, calling it "very concerning" and "quite valued." But on Tuesday, Andrews wrote an email to parents suggesting there may be a workaround coming that might defuse the situation. 
 
 "As you are aware a decision was made to cancel an upcoming kindergarten field trip," Andrews wrote. "I acknowledge we failed as District to provide adequate information as to the change in the field trip. I am working directly with the site administrator to find optimal solutions as we move forward. Cambrian School District is committed to working with staff and families to meet the needs of all of our students and their diverse values and traditions.'' 
 
 Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc ||||| Concerned parents confronted the Cambrian School District in San Jose late Thursday after the superintendent canceled a decade-old tradition of writing letters to Santa and then delivering them on a school field trip to Big E's coffee shop. Peggy Bunker reports. (Published Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015) 
 
 Parents in San Jose, California, plan to pull their kindergarteners out of school Friday after the principal canceled a decade-old tradition of writing letters to Santa and delivering them on a field trip to a local coffee shop. 
 
 Parent Vanessa Howe will carry on the tradition by staging a walkout at 10 a.m. Friday, the day the field trip was scheduled to take place. She is urging anyone who wants to join to meet at the corner of Woodford Drive and Hallmark Lane. Parents will bring their children to Big E's coffee shop to visit Santa. 
 
 "We had a person come in last week to my son's class to speak about Hanukkah, and it would be like saying, 'I don't want you coming into the classroom because I don't want my son around that, or learning about that,'" Howe said. 
 
 It comes after the Jewish mother of a child at Sartorette Elementary School sent a four-page letter to the school district asking for the event to be canceled. She brought up "best practices" concerns and told administrators she is not anti-Christmas, but feels it's inappropriate that only one religion be represented in school. 
 
 Santa Field Trip Canceled in San Jose: Mom Accused of Waging 'War on Christmas' 
 
 A San Jose kindergarten class’s field trip to visit Santa was abruptly canceled this week, launching a Christmas controversy that has left a slew of hurt feelings and spurred a protest. Michelle Roberts reports. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015) 
 
 The parent, who wants to be identified only as Talia, had the support of the superintendent and the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C., which said the field trip to see Santa during public school hours was inappropriate and ill advised. 
 
 In a letter to the school board, Talia said the "Dear Santa" letters and field trip are not "inclusive of all students." 
 
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 Talia went to see Supt. Carrie Andrews, and worked out a compromise: To attend the field trip and drink hot chocolate without Santa. Parents could take their kids to see Santa on their own time. She also advocated for a more multi-cultural holiday approach, which her own kindergarten teacher readily adopted. Parents from eight cultures came to class on Thursday to teach about customs across the globe. 
 
 But the principal canceled the trip, which is upsetting other parents. Many said the biggest issue is that they were not consulted by the school board. 
 
 As Andrews pointed out to NBC Bay Area, however, the decision wasn't the school board's to make. Andrews acknowledged a "communication breakdown on a personnel level" was at the root of it. 
 
 "(School officials) preemptively made a decision without getting further input beyond one person it appears, so I'm here to hear what they have to say for themselves," parent Mitch Williams said late Thursday. 
 
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 Still, other parents ended up siding with Talia. 
 
 Elizabeth Snowden, who is Christian, never realized the tradition might cause people of other faiths to feel left out. Snowden said she actually felt jealous of the multicultural party held in Talia's daughter's class, and was thinking of bringing her own 5-year-old to that. "I think kids in her class are getting a much better holiday party," she said. 
 
 NBC Bay Area's Lisa Fernandez contributed to this report.
– Every year for a decade, kindergarten students at Sartorette Elementary School in San Jose have been writing letters to Santa then delivering them to the man himself on a school-sponsored outing. Not this year. The Cambrian School District says this month's field trip to meet Santa Claus at a local coffee shop has been canceled after a Jewish mother complained that the school board was honoring Christianity above other religions and her 5-year-old might feel left out. "The field trip was tied to two writing workshops that were supposed to be spent writing to Santa," the woman, identified only as Talia, tells ABC7. "There was also a reindeer party and other Christmas related activities. There was nothing done for the Diwali festival" or for Ramadan, she adds, noting there are also Muslim and Hindu students in the class. "We need to teach about all the holidays," she says, per CBS San Francisco. "We live in a global society." Some support Talia's move. "I think in the world of intolerance that we live in anything we can do to promote tolerance and understanding is going to be a benefit to everybody," says a fellow parent. But Talia says she's also taken a lot of flak. "I had some parents that called me a communist, that said that I didn't want any holidays in the school," she says. Some even threatened to pull their children out of school on Friday and accused Talia of ruining Christmas and starting a "war on Christmas," per the San Jose Mercury News. "It's really scary how one parent can go and voice her opinion and then everything gets shut down," says a parent. NBC Bay Area reports parents from eight cultures spoke to the class about different customs on Thursday. (Parents are peeved about this school's calligraphy lesson.)