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

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

[Blueflag]

The issues here are at least two-fold

(1) common sense has 'left the building' in public education systems. Zero tolerance coupled with a lack of real empowerment to discipline and shape kids leaves the bureaucrats alone to execute policy.

(2) the mom and daughter were just trying to be 'fashionable'. I seriously doubt this girl and mom were into gang dress, or could describe gang regalia beyond red and blue and droopy. The issue is that administrators try to cover up the problems by enforcing against the perceived symptoms -- the dress, the signs, the lingo -- not the root cause. They are not really empowered or permitted to address the root cause, so it grows -- and they paper over the issue with ill-defined dress codes in the name of zero-tolerance.

Having said all this, I support the schools' right to enforce a dress code, particularly related to 'decency' which is about as easy to define as pornography ;-).

I am very conflicted ;-) I am a political libertarian and a social Conservative.

[jigsaw]

Jack said the school applies the policy to everyone, but
admitted some camouflaged students meld into the scenery.

I don't know Jack, but aren't people wearing camouflage
supposed to meld into the scenery ?

[panaxanax]

http://lhs.lowell.k12.ma.us/Default.aspx?tabid=169

Check this out. I guess it's okay to promote homosexual activity at Lowell, but not okay to wear camo.

Home schooling is the only answer.

[Smokin' Joe]

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.

I have no beef with a dress code. JUST SPELL IT OUT. ON PAPER, In the color of your choice.

None of this "Well... we don't think this is appropriate or that is appropriate" on-the-spot guesswork, just write down the rules and stick to them.

This wing-it garbage undermines the very concept of the rule of law and moral absolutes, and bolsters situation ethics as a worldview.

[panaxanax]

Rainbow Connection/Gay-Straight Alliance

---

Open to all students interested in diversity, gay-straight issues, acceptance of individual differences, and the subjects of peace & non-violence. Students attend meetings, rallies, conferences & workshops.

[RightFighter]

I wonder if this would have been okay:

[saveliberty]

:-) I have taught in a high school and while listening comprehension skills when a class assignment is handed out may be suspect, I guarantee that listening comprehension is greatly improved when it is telling tales of other students.

[Tom Bombadil]

just wanted to blend in with the crowd.

Doing that in today's high school means that your bellybutton should be catchin cold and that your tank top is the right color.

Not only do we put our schools in cities where gangs form (which is just about everywhere), we expect the poor administrators to get all of the students on the same page. We live in a truly strange place. This whole education thing looks like a train wreck to me.

[JamesP81]

But schools have the right to set policy, whatever that may be. If a parent disagrees with a policy, the appropriate action is for the parent to talk to the school before having an escalation.

It's an idiotic policy. No school, organization, or bureaucracy will ever get anything from me but opposition if it continues to behave stupidly. This isn't a moral issue about being able to wear what you want, it's an issue of this school system's offensive level of stupidity. I couldn't care less about the clothes.

[panaxanax]

Absolutely positively unacceptable.....remove that camo immediately!

[Ladysmith]

The first person that came to my mind is a gal I go to the local tech college with. She loves turkey hunting and will get up very early to do so. Eventually, she heads to school for classes, camo head to toe. The only thing disrupting about it all during lecture is my elbowing her to wake up when she starts dozing off.

[Blueflag]

I like your points.

Schools have to deal with kids ( 10 and 11 and up ) dressing like Beoncee (sp?) Brittney and Latoya and Snoop and Eminem and Dracula and Pedro and Elton John and Private Ryan.

They have to deal with this because parents didn't parent, didn't have good sense (or see the moral error) and the parents know the schools are paper tigers.

They have to deal with this because the kids are kids, don't have proper moral foundations, etc., etc.

Lord of the Flies comes to mind.

Sadly, the Liberals in this country have a point (though they won't admit to it publicly) -- too many folks in this country aren't ready to self-govern and look to a government of elites for care-taking.

BTW -- Back in the last century ;-) when I was in high school, we couldn't wear jeans or tee-shirts to school; it was a BIG DEAL when girls got to wear slacks on Gym days; and you DID NOT talk back to Mr. Faulkner or Coach Davis and you KNEW why.

[Baby Driver]

It's a matter of foundation. would you build a
skyscraoer on a sand dune? There is a basic lesson,
as well as a proper envoirnment for learning, by
setting a standard, and requiring it's adgerence.
As that lesson is, that sociatal, civilisational
convebtions, and manners, have a much greater
valuem, than as an affectation. They are not just
a way as being seen as "good" but a method and
practices, by which those who flllow the rules,
*gain* from them, without having to resort to force,
or might making "right". Conformity is *not* the
dirty word that the irresponsable DemoHippie Culture
would have everyone beilieve, as long as it makes
room for ingenuity. Conformity has it's merits, and
a great deal of benefits...at least as much as
what non comformity/radical change has given to
Man.

[saveliberty]

:-) I think that the policy is silly. I think that the mother is silly and I think that the daughter is silly. They are free to be silly. But whose property is this? It is the school's. It's not anonymously public as the school board has to pay for it and keep it up.

On the school premises, the school has the right to make up policies that many people think are silly. The onus is on the parents to review and if necessary question in a meaningful conversation.

In the end, the school should win on legal, not moral grounds. That's how I reconcile my wacky libertarianism with defending the pinheads at the Lowell school.

[airborne]

Tomorrow, she should show up in full Goth garb.

That would be acceptable.

[bert]

She looks like a United Mine workers striker on terror patrol

[silent_jonny]

I wonder if this would have been okay:

It's okay with me :)

[saveliberty]

Right, but you would go to the school administration and present your case with all of the intensity that you thought appropriate. And that is my point, you would take responsibility for challenging what you perceived to be an unjust rule, while this lady flops around and makes a big media hoopla because she cannot be an effective advocate for her child.

[R. Scott]

Possibly kids have changed since I was in high school, but back then the reasons for detention were not widely known. I was is detention a few times, but the reasons were not exactly common knowledge in the student body as a whole. My friends knew of it, but I seriously doubt the cheerleader and basketball clique were even aware I was in detention. It wasn’t a very large school either – my graduating class had 80 people according to my year book.

[Ladysmith]

LOL