FATIGUE FLAP: LHS student sent home for wearing camouflage outfit (with pic)

The Lowell (Mass.) Sun ^ | 11/30/2005 | By HILLARY CHABOT

[gieriscm]

She should come in the next day wearing hunter-safety blaze orange over the camo.

[Night Hides Not]

During my junior year in high school, my dad gave me a beautiful Buck knife for Christmas.

I wore it to school just about every day...nobody said a thing, either.

[mtbopfuyn]

Back in the '70s, I wore my uncle's Viet Nam shirts and stuff to school. No, I wasn't the guy with the hit list but I did walk around town with chickens riding on my shoulders.

[FreedomPoster]

I wonder if she could get away with Marine digital or Army ACU type camo? Exactly what is proscribed? Anything the school doesn't like?

[FreedomPoster]

>>And it is every students
first responsability to comport themselves in a
civil and acceptable manner, abd be open to
instruction.

Exactly what here did you find uncivil or unacceptable?

[Adder]

This wasn't a penis costume and it appears the only disruption came from these school officials who decided that something "had to be banned" and made a big deal out of it.

Like the other kid quoted said: gang colors are red and blue. You going to ban red and blue clothing?

[R. Scott]

It's the gang relation. If it's controversial or if it has gang associations, we won't have it,” Samaras said.

Gang related????????
Controversial????

[Blueflag]

You said " ...A Schools' first priorty is
to maintain a proper and safe enviornment for
educating their charges."

I disagree.

Their first priority is their education role.

I don't disagree with the need for a "proper and safe" environment, it just isn't the first priority of an educator. You don't go to college and get a degree (and masters) in law enforcement, you get it in education.

"Society" and local government are responsible for public safety and civility. Don't make the teachers and administrators police officers. I'd rather give them the freedom and the license to refer malcontents over for discipline/remove etc., and let others be responsible for public safety.

OK, I'm naive ;-)

[Doctor Raoul]

Lowell High Headmaster Bill Samaras said military gear is associated with some local gangs, and could disrupt students' safety and their learning environment.

Paraniod, bed wetting liberals disrupt students' safety and their learning environment.

If she were holding a photo of a dead troop to protest the war durimg school, the Headmaster would think camo is kewl.

[saveliberty]

If it was difference of opinion about policy, then why didn't the mother raise it with the school before sending her daughter in the outfit? Look, people have disagreements all of the time. Some people know how to resolve them. This girl's mother is not one of them.

[Eclectica]

"...Even though the connection to gangs seems to be tenuous at best, I believe it is the schools right and responsibility to have rules and enforce them. Kids do not have the right to wear whatever they want to school.

A couple of thoughts:

1) Even by Massachusetts standards, the city of Lowell is a mess. (So the school should send her home).

2) Her mother stated that "Everything she wears matches". Isn't the object of camoflage that NOTHING matches?

[R. Scott]

I'm with the scholl on this. They have a right, if not a duty to have an acceptable dress code for schools that teach minors.

But the dress code should be a bit more specific. If any clothing can be deemed “controversial” by the administration in a summary fashion, closets could be full of clothes that are unknowingly banned.

[Mark was here]

A lot of school officials wear suits. Suits associated with gangsters. Ban the school officials.

Sometimes you may see "gangs" wearing white shirts and ties, better get on the ban wagon.

[sgtbono2002]

She paid a bundle for this stuff, it didnt come from the local Surplus store. Thats probably the biggest reason she is complaining.

Look at the fit of those pants and the Chinese dog fur on the collar.LOL.

[saveliberty]

A boy was suspended for wearing camo pants. This cannot have been unknown.

[saveliberty]

LOL! Good point! And let us not forget that the city of Lowell MA was the first gainful employment for the haughty, French looking Senator who by the way also served in Vietnam.

Lowell is a scary place. Day or night.

[Free Baptist]

I wish there were some way that we could totally isolate government education in a way that the whole nation could see the liberal/left wing agenda therein. We have already written off government education; had written it off in 1982 when we began home schooling.

But since the government school portion still appears on my property tax bill yearly, I am seeking way to more effectively expose the left wing agenda far and wide in our county. We really can't isolate it as long as they make us shell out the bucks for it under threat of selling our property at the Sheriff's auction.

In my view, this girl in her camo fatiques is a MOCKERY of our young people who wear them to defend our nation. I am not opposed to the wearing of military-style camo clothing, but it just makes good old-fashioned American sense to wear them in a respectful manner, that might even cause us to remember, and to pray for, our young people who are in harm's way.

This high school junior girl is also in harm's way, and her parents evidently do not see it. She is in the gun sights of the liberal teachers unions and the humanistic university set.

I view her wearing of ANY clothing in the manor pictured as being grossly immodest and seductive, much like a whore on a street corner. If I were the school principal, that would be the first issue, and I would send her home just for that reason.

[Liberty Valance]

This is funny. I have a friend (public school teacher) that used to pretend to mark his students absent when the boys wore cammo during hunting season...claimed he couldn't see them.;o) The whole class got a kick out of it.

[R. Scott]

A boy was suspended for wearing camo pants. This cannot have been unknown.

“Phill Rodrigues, 14, a Lowell High freshman, said he was given a detention for wearing camouflage pants on one of his first days of school.” – but how many people knew of it, and the reason for the detention? Maybe not unknown by his friends, but how about the student body in general?

[Smokin' Joe]

“If she just had a jacket, or if she just had a T-shirt, we would ask her to put the jacket away or cover the shirt. We don't want to send students home. But she was covered head to foot,” Jack said.

No face paint? Can't be too serious.

Notice how everything depends on the situation or the school. No hard and fast rules.

One of the biggest reasons why the kid is in a parochial school.