hmmmmmmmmmm…
I’m with the person who thinks its none of the school’s business what kind of underwear I’m wearing.
~~
And Yeah, if I was the teacher I’d be humiliated by the spelling errors on display. If that’s what she’s teaching her kids, she should leave off the rules and go take spelling lessons.
You’ve never driven in Montreal, have you?
Actually, I would care. This is not this particular school, but in general. These people are learning many things; I fear that part of school experience is how to act in society. If they grow up with no expectation to privacy, or learning to live in a constant stat of distrust it will effect how they act as adults. Often I feel that rules telling people what to wear are arbitrary and difficult to enforce. It seems to me like some schools want to have complete control over the child’s actions and remove any responsibility from the child. From the site “no drugs, no illegal, prescription or over the counter drugs are to be in your possession” I would have hated to have to walk to the office every time I needed a puff on my inhaler. I have seen grown men that were subjected to authoritarian rules turn into mindless zombies; I would hate to see this happen to a child.
On the flip side, I actually believe in school uniforms. Learning to take care of a uniform and maintain it is a valuable lesson that I can see being taught (I still cannot stand it when I see an adult man that doesn’t know how to tie their tie correctly). When done for the right reasons, it can help establish a sense of community, and a feeling of equality. For this to happen though the teachers themselves would have to dress appropriately (something that one school tried to enforce was a dress code for teachers. The teachers and their union put an end to that quickly.
As always, it is no simple matter.
Bad spelers unitte!
Most schools (in Utah at least) keep kids’ required medications in the nurse’s office. No child just carries an inhaler around with them. They must go to the office to get it. The problem my daughter had with this was that occasionally she would get a twit teacher who would question her need for her inhaler. We did have some problems with that.
I work in an allergist’s office and we have form letters to send to schools with instructions about asthma medications and allergy rescue medications to be given in case of anaphylaxis due to food allergy.
Susan
[quote=“s1m0n”]I’m with the person who thinks its none of the school’s business what kind of underwear I’m wearing.
quote]
It is if you wear it outside your uniform.
Ain’t that the truth!
Um, actually I have driven in Montreal.
I don’t think the rules are for a specific class, I think they’re rules for the whole school, at all times. That means, yes, that it is against the rules for anyone to hug their boyfriend or girlfriend, and it is against the rules to have a cel phone with which to call for a ride. For some reason, schools seem to be unable to make rules like ‘no -use of cel phones- during class’ and suchlike.
Depending on the school, there may be quite a few hours where one is -at- school but not -in class-.
They look, anyway, a lot like the rules that were campus wide when I was in school, only stricter.
I think for inhalers, epipens, and other ‘emergency, as needed’ medications, it’s absurd and dangerous to keep them in the nurse’s office. For scheduled doses, it’s perfectly reasonable.
The clothing rules don’t really bother me, though I do think at a certain point it might make more sense to just revert to a school uniform rule instead of making rules against something new every year…
These are the same rules, though slightly less strict, that I went to high school under, which was something like 20 years ago 
We didn’t have cell phones then, but we weren’t allowed the little LED football game. I guess the only rule we didn’t have was the website one. In addition to the ones listed on the page, I remember our school not allowing boys to have facial hair. Shorts couldn’t be worn in Summer (this is in Texas, mind you), and boys couldn’t wear earrings.
I found many of the rules restrictive and silly..just a control mechanism for the teacher, to minimize disruption of routine.
This is just a guess folks, but I think that this “vocational technical” school might be for the hard cases who have problems with impulse control. In California, we used to call them “continuation” schools and they were for kids who had been expelled from regular school. It might explain why they are trying to keep the lid on so tight. They are probably just trying to get them into a skill because they probably are not college-bound and they are trying to keep them from being prison-bound…even if the place is run like a prison…
as I said, having teens, I see nothing wrong with any rules on the site.
Sure, common sense would say if you needed to have a cell phone because of staying after school, you could as long as you didn’t use it during classes. Unfortunately, common sense seems to be something a lot of teens (both now and when I was that age) seem to lack. This school may have had that policy at one time, and it was abused, to went to the “no phones” period rule. Same with the others that seem to be Orwellian. With text messaging, you have kids typing to each other all day long, sharing test results, etc.
At my son’s school, the policy for phones was it had to be turned off, in the locker, during the school hours. If you needed to make an emergency call, you could, but you had to bring it to the office to do so. If you needed to be contacted in an emergency, you were to give out either the office number, and / or the teacher’s number (all had phones with answering machines and email in the classrooms).
As I said - I see nothing wrong with the rules, because I know just how much the kids will try to get away with if you let them. And as long as the kids and parents know the rules going in.
In Oklahoma, there is a state-run system of regional Vo-Tech schools, and high school students are encouraged to attend them for half a day in place of regular classes, during their junior and senior years. I did not attend Vo-Tech, though I went to Oklahoma public school during my junior year. However, my mother attended, and she was an honor student in her high school.
I doubt if the real issue is the skivies that they wear, I think it’s displaying them to the public where the school finds it their business.
Well, the cell phone thing isn’t only because of class disruption, is it? I thought one of the reasons had to do with kids who might have an illegal part-time job of substance distribution, no? If that’s the case, you wouldn’t really want a kid with a lot of free time spending it on his or her cell- ideally you would want them to use some of that time towards school related activities.
Um, how “central” in “central Mass” are you? I’m originally from Sturbridge.
All the Best, Tom
I thought it might be a “tough love for troubled kids” type of school myself, Weekenders, but it doesn’t make the rules seem less bizarre and arbitrary. I’m of the opinion it’s often the kids who question authority and the status quo that end up in these schools, and imposing MORE rules and MORE authority isn’t likely to help them become less self-destructive.
I also kind of think the anti-sexuality and anti-trendiness rules (the clothing and the hugging) take impact from the more important rules (no guns and no illegal drugs.) I could see a scenario where a teen decides that since the panties rule is silly, then ALL the rules must be silly.
Actually, I don’t have to picture it, I lived it myself!
Anyway, thank god I’m not in high school any more.
Some time, I’ll find and scan an old article from a Seatle newspaper. Very educational, regarding high schools, and different ideas towards rules.
Anyway, I personally, (having just finished high school) am of the opinion that more enforcment of strict rules is beneficial for those who “question authority and the status quo”. I for one would have had a much better time at school if there had been a stricter and more enforced set of rules.
And for what it’s worth, none of those rules are arbitrary.
Are you a person who questions authority? It seems to me you aren’t or you wouldn’t be feeling like more of it would be good for you. I’m not saying that’s “bad”, just that there are different types of people in the world, and that maybe what works for you doesn’t work equally well for everybody.
Anyway, if you don’t find those rules arbitrary, what would you argue is the rationale behind not allowing students to choose their own underwear or hug in the halls? Or carry epi-pens and inhalers?
“Anyway, if you don’t find those rules arbitrary, what would you argue is the rationale behind not allowing students to choose their own underwear or hug in the halls? Or carry epi-pens and inhalers?”
Again, it’s NOT the underwear, hugging, or carrying an epi-pen. It’s the wearing of thongs so that you can see them (and half of what underwear usually is covering), making out that goes WAY beyond hugging, and kids having all kinds of stuff besides prescription inhalers.
It’s the kids taking the rules that seem “ok” and pushing them way beyond their logical limits.
And it becomes disruptive. And then the teachers spend 30 minutes of every hour babysitting the kids vs. teaching. And on and on.
If someone came to my place of work wearing thong underwear that is visible, and making out in the hallway - they’d not have a job for long. As for medical stuff - we have to go to our health services for a band-aid, so there is a paper trail in place in case the injury moves to something more and becomes a recordable incident or worker’s comp claim.
In life, unfortunately, you aren’t “free” to do whatever you want. No matter what country you live in.
Again, it’s NOT the underwear, hugging, or carrying an epi-pen. It’s the wearing of thongs so that you can see them (and half of what underwear usually is covering), making out that goes WAY beyond hugging, and kids having all kinds of stuff besides prescription inhalers.
It’s the kids taking the rules that seem “ok” and pushing them way beyond their logical limits.
I see the opposite–I see authority taking reasonable restrictions and then formulating rules which are grossly exaggerated–pushing WAY beyond any logical limits.
If its not the underwear or the epi pen or a kiss, then they have no business passing rules against them in the interests of stupidity (err, zero tolerance).
Sometimes life is sull of nuance, and you have to respond that way; prentending the world is black and white is willfully stupid.
“Because I say so” isn’t a good reason for anything, and will only cost the school and the teacher respect.