A St. Paul public elementary school principal wants to cancel celebrations for Valentine’s Day and other holidays in the name of “racial equity and access.”

Bruce Vento Principal Scott Masini has drafted a letter to parents that says celebrating the dominant holidays at schools might be “encroaching on the educational opportunities of others and threatening a culture of tolerance and respect for all.”

The letter was to be delivered Thursday, but Masini decided to wait a few days after discussing the issue with St. Paul Public Schools leaders, spokeswoman Toya Stewart Downey said.

In the meantime, the district will check with other St. Paul schools about whether and how they observe holidays.

The school district has formally discouraged holiday parties since at least 2008, the last time the school board updated its policy on the subject. Some schools have continued to celebrate holidays anyway.

The policy reads, in part:

“Schools shall discourage programs and festivities arranged to celebrate holidays and other special days, and shall strive to eliminate them, except where such observances are required by law.”

Exceptions to the policy are Veterans Day and the birthdays of Martin Luther King, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. When school is held on those days, state law says “at least one hour of the school program must be devoted to a patriotic observance of the day.”

Stewart Downey said Superintendent Valeria Silva supports the district’s policy on holiday observances. But the district will gather input from schools in case the school board wants to change the policy.

Masini declined an interview request, but Stewart Downey said the principal in December discussed with his staff the subject of celebrating only select holidays.

“I’m struggling with this, and I don’t know what the right answer is,” Masini said in a statement released by the district.

“But what I do know is celebrating some holidays and not others is not inclusive of all of the students we serve.”

In his draft letter, which was circulated on a Facebook page for supporters of district teachers, Masini said the school no longer would celebrate Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas — at least, until the school “can come to a better understanding of how the dominant view will suppress someone else’s view.”

Of Bruce Vento students, 63 percent are Asian-American and 24 percent are African-American; 96 percent qualify for school lunch subsidies.

Pearl Huerta, a parent of a fourth-grader at Bruce Vento, said holiday parties help to break up the school-day routine for students.

“Those are the very littlest things they have to look forward to,” she said while picking up her child after school Thursday.

Michon Smiley, who has three children at the school, said she understands why the school would avoid parties for religious holidays, but she said the tradition of bringing cards and candy to school for Valentine’s Day is fun for kids.

Reactions to the letter were mixed on the Facebook page.

“I teach at LEAP High School. We have all immigrant students. They absolutely love celebrating Halloween and Valentine’s Day. They are learning about American culture, just as we are learning about their cultures,” one woman wrote.

Wrote another: “There is incredible social pressure at all ages to provide cards and candy for all the kids in your class. For families living in poverty, this can be all but impossible.”