Our public schools are turning our children into zombies with drugs like Ritalin. They’re taking away their creativity and incentive to learn by dumbing classes down to the lowest common denominator. And for a long time now they’ve been telling them what to wear.Some schools prohibit kids from wearing gang colors. Others ban short skirts. Bandanas, beanies, sunglasses, baseball hats, wristbands and even certain jewelry have been prohibited from certain schools throughout the country. But 14-year-old Toni Kay Scott’s parents say they were completely taken by surprise when told that their daughter’s school outlawed Tigger on a pair of socks.
For attending class at a Napa middle school wearing socks displaying the Winnie the Pooh character -- in violation of the school's solid-colors-only, no-pictures, no-logos dress code -- the seventh-grader was sent to the principal's office, and then in a detention program called Students With Attitude Problems.
Toni Kay, now an eighth-grade honors student, said that she's been cited more than a dozen times and sent home from school twice, for such infractions as wearing a polo shirt with the manufacturer's butterfly logo, a pair of pink tennis shoes and a shirt with the insignia of the anti-drug program D.A.R.E.
The incident has caused an avalanche of controversy and Napa Valley Unified School District, which approved the code, is now in court over the whole affair.
The school's "unconstitutionally vague, overbroad and restrictive uniform dress code policy'' flouts state law, violates freedom of expression, and wastes teachers' and students' time and attention that would be better spent on education, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a suit filed Monday on behalf of six students and their parents.
The school policy, in effect for more than a decade, requires students' clothes and backpacks to be entirely solid colors: The only colors permitted are blue, white, green, yellow, khaki, gray, brown and black. The only acceptable fabrics are cotton twill, chino and corduroy. No jeans or "denim-looking'' clothes allowed. No pictures, words, symbols or patterns, except the school logo. And definitely no Tigger. Or Mickey. Or Goofy, for that matter.
I think this is ridiculous. I can see the thinking behind banning clothing emblazoned with logos or messages that may be interpreted as being gang-related, religiously offensive or obscene. But, how can a cartoon tiger be considered offensive by any stretch of the imagination? Is there a subversive band of thugs out there called the Tiggers that we’re not aware of? Are they rumbling after school with the Spongebob Squarepants mob? Are they hijacking tricycles with the Rugrats crew?
This is another prime example of people in power making stupid decisions and then letting the courts do the dirty work. This is going to end up costing the Napa Valley Unified School District a lot of money in legal fees, and guess who pays for that? As they say: Those who can’t…teach. And those who can’t teach become school administrators and make up really stupid rules like this one.
