WILBRAHAM - St. Patrick's Day falls on a Saturday this year, so school children around the Valley and throughout the country will celebrate it at school on Friday.

Except at Wilbraham's Soule Road School, which this year is apparently trading in St. Patrick's Day for something called "O'Green Day."

Abc40 is reporting O'Green Day is not a tribute to the mega-successful San Francisco-based rock band Green Day, but a heavy-handed attempt to instill political correctness among the impressionable 4th and 5th graders.

The station reports the school principal, Lisa Curtin, reportedly made the move to be “inclusive and diverse” and ease any discomfort that may go along with celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. A similar renaming was done on St. Valentine's Day, also out of consideration of what are termed "faith issues," abc40 reports.

UPDATE

The School Calender notes that March 16 is to be known as "O'Green



Day / Tasting' of the Green." Oddly, the same calender labels Saturday the 17th as St. Patrick's Day.

Abc40 also reports students are encouraged to wear green on O'Green Day, and that lunches will include a variety of green vegetables.

Curtin and the school superintendent Martin O'Shea were not interviewed in the abc40 piece, so it is unclear if this O'Green Day business is political correctness run amok, or some subversive means on the part of the school to get kids to eat their vegetables.

Either way, one parent called O'Green Day "really stupid."

The celebration calls to mind the recent move by the Saugus schools to end a decade-old tradition of allowing firemen dressed as Santa to visit the schools right before the Christmas break. The move angered parents and firefighters and attracted the attention of local and national media. The school superintendent later changed his mind, but that didn't stop the death threats from pouring in anyway.