<p>My D’s HS is getting more and more restrictive. The kids are being censored at an alarming rate. My D was suspended last year for wearing shorts in a video she made for French (‘too sexy’). Kids making videos in class cannot show kissing. They have to show a shadow of a kiss. Some people got in trouble for playing Billy Joe’s ‘Italian Restaurant’ behind the morning announcements, because of the line “a bottle of red; a bottle of white”. Any kind of bathroom humor is a punishable offense. Kids can’t stay on school grounds after dismissal any more if they don’t have a teacher adviser with them without being charged with loitering. This is a suburban blue ribbon high school. I don’t get it. It’s not a religious school. They are punishing kids for things that are regularly shown on Nickelodeon and in G movies. What the heck are they trying to accomplish here? I’m in shock. I went to a Catholic all-girl hs, and they weren’t as strict with this kind of stuff. I went all the way to the board of education last year to get my D’s suspension dismissed, and lost. Whatever happened to the first ammendment? How are high school kids going to learn anything if they are censored at this ludicrous level?</p>
<p>Generally speaking courts have ruled that students, those under 18 and those voluntarily at an institution … which arguably you D is when she/ you chose to attend school, are not subject to free speech protection to the extent they are outside of school. For example your daughter is free to join an independent theater group and wear what she wants. </p>
<p>Now with that said, from your description, it does sound restrictive, I would suggest a visit with the principal-nonconfrontaional to understand the background on all this. I imagine what they are trying to accomplish is 'de-sexualizing the environment for 14-18 year olds… which is a tough thing to do 
… whether they are successful or if these are the right methods, worth discussing</p>
<p>Curious as to other feedback</p>
<p>Sounds rediculously repressive to me. </p>
<p>When “zero tolerance” results in zero common sense, kids lose all respect for authority. So do their parents.</p>
<p>I am an office manager for a child psychiatrist. I write an average of 3-4 evaluations per week for kids who have been suspended from school for being overheard saying violent things (many in innocent reference to a video game, or in jest). I know that some of these are actually serious and deserving of further investigation, but some of these cases are ridiculous. The schools have swung all the way to the ultraconservative, ultraPC, overly cautious. As a kid from the 60’s -70’s I am appalled. Kids must be totally blindsided when they go to college, where they are allowed to actually express themselves.</p>
<p>I’m going to be the dissenting voice here. When was the last time you guys spent any time at a high school? I mean a whole day…
The short shorts that might be fine at your home or in other settings can spark a whole range of classroom disruption and comments in today’s high schools.<br>
There is an emphasis on drinking with these kids that makes songs with references to alcohol a bad idea.<br>
As far as saying violent things in jest or in reference to a video game I am all for taking those things seriously.<br>
When you are going through screening at an airport, there are signs saying that the TSA takes everything said as serious. Given the violence which has happened at our schools, the school has a responsibility to follow the same procedure and take everything seriously.<br>
I am also a kid from the 60-70s but those days are gone.
The pot we experienced is not today’s pot. Meth was unheard of in those days.<br>
This reminds me of the posts about the birth control at ME schools. The statistics of 7 pregnancies in 5 years mean we can no longer ignore the situation.
This post sounds more alarming than I mean it to but I do think that we as parents need to be aware that the world these kids live in is not the one we lived in.</p>
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<p>Given that school attendance is compulsory, I’m not really sure about the “voluntary” part.</p>
<p>My own former high school has also gotten more repressive. It’s unfortunate. But the idea of being suspended for wearing shorts just appalls me. Shorts are pretty normal dress, and even in the case of a school where it’s against a dress code, dress code violations generally result in being sent home to change or in detention, not suspension!</p>
<p>Also, I’ve spent a whole day in a high school far more recently than I suspect ebeeeee has, and have a sister currently in high school, and think that his/her comment is ridiculously and unnecessarily alarmist. I’m with mommusic and tanyanubin.</p>
<p>OK, I’m another vote for “the school is going to far”. Were it a middle school, I’d have no complaints. But in a school which is in the process of making adults, there needs to be some compromise because that level of censorship is just not productive. In terms of sexual stuff, alcohol, drugs… pretty much EVERYONE has either already done it, or doesn’t want to. That doesn’t mean that really explicit stuff should be allowed, but the idea that seeing a kiss will corrupt a 14-year-old is ridiculous, and as another poster said, it only makes the kids lose respect for the school. </p>
<p>Jokes about violence are another matter. I believe the reporting parties need to use discretion and judgment, but I’m much more forgiving of zero-tolerance about violent jokes–that’s a different issue. </p>
<p>ebeeeee, being a college freshman, I’ve spent a lot of time in high school recently. And the conclusion is that yes, troubling things are happening, but severe censorship certainly isn’t the solution. It just pushes the problems underground and breeds resentment. In parenting, you pick your battles, and the school should do the same.</p>
<p>To each his own, jessiehl, glad to hear that you keep tabs on my whereabouts.
Jeeze.</p>
<p>With junior high students in Maine getting birth control at school, with the binge drinking deaths of college students, school shootings etc. I think that schools have no choice but to try to set some standards and maintain them. The culture has become increasingly “anything goes.” That doesn’t make for a good learning environment. When families no longer monitor the kids, schools have to step in.</p>
<p>tanya, I don’t doubt that your daughter’s experience seems silly in the face of all the problems in the world. It sounds like she was unlucky to some extent, but maybe there really was an issue since the school board didn’t reverse the suspension? Many of the things you mentioned sound silly, but taken as a whole, they are challenges to the mission of educating kids.</p>
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<p>I presumed, because you’re a parent and thus most likely older than I (and therefore farther out of high school). If you’re actually a teacher or something like that, I apologize…I probably should have phrased that differently. Though I still think your sentiment is excessively alarmist. :)</p>
<p>I am glad I don’t live in your community, tanyanubin. It sounds like a lot of sticks have gotten inserted where sticks shouldn’t be, there.</p>
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<p>The things that you hear on the news are not the day-to-day experience of grade schoolers. They are tragic exceptions. That’s why they make the news.</p>
<p>It irritated me, in grade school, that even when the schools were trying to solve real, pervasive problems, the solutions they chose were ridiculous and ineffective. For example:</p>
<p>Sexual harassment of female students by male students was a major problem at my middle school, but instead of taking useful measures like encouraging victims to report it, cracking down on offenders, and increasing teacher supervision of the gyms and certain hallways, they made a rule about how long your shorts had to be that did not reduce sexual harassment in the least, and gave students another way to bully each other - “Let’s hold the smart kid down and see if her shorts are long enough while the teacher is out of the room so that we can get her in trouble” (this happened to me).</p>
<p>There was also a problem with fighting and bullying through physical violence. The local solution, naturally, was to make a zero-tolerance policy that treated the kid who put his hands up to block the punches from a group attack the same as kids attacking - suspension. This not only failed to solve the problem, since usually the fighters weren’t caught in any case, and was a detriment to the kids who were being attacked, but also actually increased the sexual harassment problem, since girls were afraid to physically resist the harassers for fear of suspension.</p>
<p>And let’s not even go into girls who got in trouble for carrying painkillers to take for menstrual cramps under zero-tolerance drug rules, while the actual drinkers and drug users knew how to do it on the sly.</p>
<p>I have a problem with unnecessarily restrictive policies, and I would argue that ineffective ones are unnecessary by definition.</p>
<p>I have to agree with jessie on this one. My d’s high school has also tightened up rules (and I’m glad she’s not there anymore). For example, they’ve outlawed “belt buckles”, ostensibly because they could be used as weapons. </p>
<p>When that was announced, one girl raised her hand and said, “OK, if I don’t have a buckle, I can’t wear a belt to keep my pants up so they’ll drop and ride on my hips, which also isn’t allowed. What do I do?” Response: a blank stare.</p>
<p>What I think is worse is that violence is currently not a problem in this school. When there’s a playground fight, it makes the news! (Same with outlawing gang colors; there aren’t any organized gangs in our town.) So they’re creating “solutions” for non-existent problems. What that says to the kids is, “Why should we bother to be good kids if we’re going to get treated like we’re bad kids anyway?” People rise or fall to the level of expectations.</p>
<p>jessie, I’m appalled at the actions taken by your middle school - at least as far as sexual harassment is concerned, the administration should be reminded that it’s not about sex but about power. </p>
<p>And I have always disagreed with “zero tolerance” - educated and wise people make distinctions every day, and part of the point of education should be to teach how to make those distinctions. We don’t live in a black-and white world; shades of gray and nuances are becoming more and more important. Unless we teach and model good decision-making, we are doing our kids a disservice.</p>
<p>what you need to do, and I would do it, is have all the mom’s show up in shorts, and kiss their Hs, or SO</p>
<p>As for banning songs, that is scary stuff/…billy joel?</p>
<p>and what state is this in? and is there a new school board?</p>
<p>ever read anything about Pensacola Christian College?</p>
<p>Can’t have picture in your dorm of a male and female touching…</p>
<p>Not only are such rules repressive, and not only do they emphasize the “us versus them” mentality between students and administrators, but I’ve got to wonder - how effective will they be in accomplishing whatever it is the schools want to accomplish? If the desired result is resentment and cynicism, then bingo - mission accomplished. If the school wants a return to those halcyon days of yore when kids didn’t think about sex or roar at bathroom humor, or when songs didn’t refer to alcohol (Cole Porter, 1930-something: “I get no kick from champagne.” Or, in the next verse, cocaine) - um, exactly when were those days again?</p>
<p>The genie is out of the bottle, and I don’t think rules like these are going to stuff it back in. I don’t buy the argument that freedom of expression creates a disruptive environment. I support imposing negative consequences for disruptions, not for free speech.</p>
<p>Tanya: Is this a different video than the one your D was suspended for and you posted about it here at length? In that one, she was disciplined because there was vulgar content delivered in Russian by the other students in the group project.</p>
<p>OK, when someone says “shorts”, the first question in my mind is “define shorts?”. The girls around here wear Soffe brand gym shorts (the kind with 1/2 inch inseam), except… they buy them about 3 sizes too small, then fold the waistband down again and again until they resemble skin tight, hiphugging lycra underwear, complete with thong (if they’re even wearing anything underneath) coming out at the top and cheeks hanging out below. The problem is, in a normal size, those kind of shorts are acceptable. It’s what the girls do with the clothing that is truly shocking.</p>
<p>Yes, it is the same one. But when I contacted the Board of Education the Assistant Superintendent told me that it was the ‘sexy shorts’ that had done it! lol They actually dismissed the whole Russian debacle because of problems with the translation. The girls had not said what they were accused of; instead they had used slang that was taken as something obscene by a non-native Russian speaker. (all the Russian parents – 6 of them – had seen and heard the video and approved) At that point, though, the school was too far along to just drop it, and went ahead on the shorts and bathroom noise issue.</p>
<p>Jessiehl and Chedva–The skewed way violence is being handled in our district–which is a long-standing district (one in which there is no violence problem)–is insane. We have had a number of kids in for evaluations to determine their ‘safety’ to return to school whose only ‘crime’ was to finally fight back. One poor kid had been bullied for several years. He had been bloodied on the bus, mercilessly teased, etc. When he finally got up the nerve to scream back at the kids “I wish you were dead!” some staff member suspended HIM. Those poor parents had been trying to get the bullying stopped for YEARS. Jessiehl, I know what you mean about the dress regulations. Some kids do wear scandalous shorts to school. But they don’t seem to be stopped in the hallway for it very often. It was only when shorts (and they weren’t even those really short ones) were shown in the video that one teacher got annoyed and suspended the kids. At that point the school had circled it’s wagons and were not budging no matter what. Can’t wait til June when my kids are done in this district for good.</p>
<p>Well, you really have to view the suspension in light of all the baggage that video carried. It wasn’t just your D wearing sexy shorts. The administration & teacher have a different view of the Russian slang’s meaning. The video contained bathroom footage with gross noises. Wasn’t one girl wearing a bathing suit. too? In short, the video was fraught with problems. Plenty of the content was either inappropriate for an academic school project on its own or pretty darn close to crossing the line. Add a few of those questionable taste moments together, and the video was bound to attract negative attention. Your D’s suspension was the result of much more than just wearing shorts in a video. Perhaps it was the only violation specifically listed in the academic policy of the school. Chances are, the authors of that policy never thought they’d have to include “Gross bathroom noises accompanying video footage of bathrooms are not tolerated in academic projects” in the verbiage. So in today’s litigious climate, they based the suspension on the violation most easily connected to written policy.</p>
<p>I don’t see a problem with keeping strict standards in place. Kids are naturally programmed to push the envelope – Why keep pushing those boundaries back so that they need to be absolutely outrageous in order to engage in natural rebellion?</p>