For many adults, either couples or singles, Valentine's Day is a time fraught with tension, awkwardness, and dread.
One elementary school tried to shield its students from all those big people worries, and now parents are outraged.
The Walkersville Elementary School announced last year that Valentine's Day would not be celebrated by its student body of first to fifth graders.
But this year, parents wrote in the Frederick News-Post in protest, complaining that the school was taking away a great day for young people.
"The Scrooge of Valentine's Day is alive in Walkerville," one parent wrote.
School principal Stephanie Brown says taking away Valentine's Day is really in the children's best interest. She told the News-Post that one of the reasons that the holiday was scrapped was because the school wanted to avoid "the inappropriate interactions between boys and girls in the classroom."
Brown also said that the candies traditionally exchanged at Valentine's Day might trigger a food allergy, a risk the school did not want to take.
PTA President Jim Sniezek told the News-Post that the Valentine's Day embargo had been on the books since last year. "It was made known last May that there would be no Valentine's Day party, there were no complaints then."
On the bright side, on Monday, no child at the elementary school had to worry about buying flowers or getting a last-minute dinner reservation.
