Parents slapped with dress code after turning school grounds into a fashion crime scene The American education system has always been the envy of Brit schoolkids – if only because it's easy to glower across the pond at their freedom to wear whatever they want from the prickly tomb of Teflon uniforms. However, James Madison High School in Houston, Texas, has found itself having to enforce a dress code. Not on the …
You're right. "Sowfend" is what people say who come from Sarfend and want to be thought middle class.
I was told that by an electrical engineer from Southend who spoke without a trace of a Southend accent - because the moment his teachers said he was likely to get into university, his parents sent him for elocution lessons so he wouldn't suffer socially.
his parents sent him for elocution lessons
My dad was born and brought up in Halifax, West Vale. His mother, being somewhat posh (born in Suffolk) thought that the Yorkshire accent was too common and forbade its use in t'ouse. (What my grandfather thought of this isn't known - but he was born and brought up in Leicestershire so would have had a vaguely similar accent!).
My aunt told me that she remembered my dad walking down t'lane with his school frinds, broad Yorkshire accent - and that accent would stop the moment he walking into the house.
I must have been lucky, none of the parents every turned up in anything worse than normal blue jeans and t-shirts. Most of the mothers wore dresses and were "dolled up to the 9s", because the school gate was a sort of social one-upmanship.
"Oh, look at Maggie, I'm sure she bought that at Quality Seconds!"
There's a talk radio guy who said he used to threaten his teenage daughters to ESCORT THEM TO EVERY CLASS while wearing a pink speedo, if they didn't get themselves to school on time, etc..
So i guess this method of ensuring your youngins actually get to class isn't going to work any more?
Oh yeah and moms can do the 'mom thing' to their sons all day, same idea, making sure you give them a nice PDA mom-kiss in front of every classroom whenever possible. One day of THAT torture would have every school-age boy getting to class ON time IN the seat BEFORE the bell rings, for fear of having to ENDURE that kind of embarassment...
and I don't think a lot of moms could do justice to 'Daisy Duke' shorts. However it might be a fun fight if the parental dress code included women actually wearing DRESSES... (no pants, no shorts, no bathrobes, DRESSES ). It was sorta like the lady coach in high school requiring girl athletes to wear a dress to school on occasions. The boy athletes occasionally had to wear shirt+tie, so it was "a thing" there.
School governor here... we don't have this problem so much but we do have a small stupid minority of parents who dangerously and illegally park their cars on the zig-zag lines outside school. Personally I would set fire to their cars, but our patient and long-suffering head teacher tells me that we're not allowed to do that.
You can get the police to come along once or twice a year (they're pretty busy apparently), you can get patrols of parents and kids to talk to miscreants (avoiding the occasional threats of violence) but after that there's not much more you can do. Until a child is killed or injured (thank God that has not happened yet) at which point the full force of the law will of course descend.
Very depressing that a small minority of lazy idiots can spoil it for the rest of us.
but after that there's not much more you can do
Take a cue from Eric Frank Russel's sci-fi novel "The Wasp" - the saboteur has a whole set of stickers that can be applied to glass surfaces that require really hot water to remove. And the hot water activates acid microcapsules in the glue that, once activated, combine to acid-etch an image into the glass.
For example "parks selfishly" or "inconsiderate idiot"..
Other, less polite messages[1] are possible - the only limit is your imagination and the size limit of the sticker.
[1] But please, not emojis. That would be far, far too cruel and twee. We have a language for a reason and do not need to regress to a pre-literate society.
- the saboteur has a whole set of stickers that can be applied to glass surfaces that require really hot water to remove. And the hot water activates acid microcapsules in the glue that, once activated, combine to acid-etch an image into the glass.
There is a group in Russia that basically does this, except without the acid etching stickers. They deal with people who drive on sidewalks and similar brilliant activities by slapping enormous stickers over their windshields/windscreens, typically while the owner is in the vehicle. This seems effective. Alternatively, public naming and shaming has a certain appeal.
Fucking pink camo ANYTHING. The mind absolutely boggles that some people consider it appropriate anywhere adults gather ... Actually, come to think of it, camo as day-to-day wear is a sure sign that the wearer is of sub-par intelligence, the pink would just highlight that. Carry on, and thanks for the warning! :-)
Fucking pink camo ANYTHING
OK, this is pink and camo, but WTF. Some years ago I was on safari(*) in Zambia. The clothing guidance was nothing brightly coloured as it scares the animals off, nothing in camouflage style as poachers wear it and you might get shot by the rangers, all clothing modest so as not to offend the locals. There was a travel journo and his girlfriend getting a freebie in our party. She wore a dayglo pink mohair top and camo hot pants.
(*) Not the browser.
She wore a dayglo pink mohair top and camo hot pants.
Ugh. That makes Mary Kingsley's African outfits seem sensible.
(I know, Kingsley was in West Africa and Zambia is South. Couldn't think of any women famous for wearing full Victorian get-up down there, though.)
On the rare occasion[0] that I wear camo, it's bright orange. I don't want the likes of Dick Cheney mistaking me for game.
The "pink camo" thing is pure marketing bullshit aimed at the brain-dead girlfriends of rednecks.
[0] Opening weekend for hunting season. That's when the city slickers come out to the woods and blaze away at anything that moves, thus causing any wildlife with a central nervous system to dive for deep cover until the clueless idiots go home again.
"I'm having a hard time visualizing where one would want to wear pink camouflage as camouflage implies "not being seen"."
But you're assuming that all animals have the same level of colour vision that we humans do - and that's not the case.
Even for humans, in dense bush (such as in NZ where I live) orange, red and pink will fade to grey as soon as the sun began to set in heavy bush areas - my son, who is a hunting type, tells me that colours such as NATO Blue are the best for standing out in such circumstances.
Camouflage needs to be customised to a specific environment to be effective.
I just looked down in the barn/indoor arena. About a dozen and a half teenage girls (13 to 16, a PE class (PT to you brits)) doing horse things, not a stitch of pink camo to be seen. A couple have traditional camo paddock boots, one has a hat, another a backpack. For what it's worth, I don't think I've ever seen any of them with pink camo.
As a side note, not a single iFad to be seen either. Do with that what you will.
"As for that Superdry rubbish...."
I first encountered SuperDry when my son was training with Scouts for the Ten Tors event and a couple of the leaders wore SuperDry jackets .... given the context (leaders training people for 35-mile unsupported 2-day hike over Darttmoor) plus the name "SuperDry" along with additional Japanese characters on the jacket made me think that this must be some high quality "technical" clothing from Japan which these experienced outdoor people had discovered. I was a bit surprised to find out later that it was just a "brand"!
the fact that I never before heard of superdry, and the way it was cut, and the way it displayed the logo, and the fact which parents wore it, all that was an immediate giveaway. But hey, there's sucker born every minute, kids take after their parents. Just insert some "creative", "revolutionary", "breakthrough" bullshit and they will gobble, rinse and repeat.
Still have some Rohan clothing, though I haven't bought any new stuff for a few years. It's actually quite well made (the earlier ranges, certainly) and ideal for travelling. I still have a couple of their business suits - plenty of pockets for storing documents, could be washed in a hotel bathroom if necessary and unwanted creases dropped out. Don't wear them much nowadays as I'm retired but they're reliable. I recall one overseas trip that was meant to be two nights (so hand luggage only) that ended up as a week and a different hotel each night.
Nowadays, I wear their stuff on holidays as it's light and easy to pack, can be washed in a sink or shower, dries overnight and doesn't need ironing - though my wife and I still pack more than we actually need!
Rohan clothing seems expensive but, unless you're one of those people that never wear anything more than a handful of times, it's actually good value.
Rohan shirts have real shirt pockets where I can keep my mobile phone. They have zips so it doesn't fall out.
Around here, in the Southwest, where checked shirts are totally normal, they don't stick out at all.
OTOH in an example of almost unbelievable stupidity, I saw a workman unloading a scaffolding lorry into the road wearing full camouflage gear. It would add a whole new dimension to "I'm sorry, mate, didn't see you."
Why on earth would somebody ever wear full camo in the Southwest of the British Isles? Frankly, I don't see it as very useful here in the US where hunting is a way of life for a large portion of the population. Well, I've never needed it to tag my dinner anyway ...
Why on earth would somebody ever wear full camo in the Southwest of the British Isles?
It's very cheap (sold in Army surplus shops), surprisingly durable and doesn't show dirt or tear easily. Also seen as trendy in some of the more macho[1] segments of society.
[1] But not in the gay community. Not unless it's in an ironic sense.
Does anyone remember Rohan?
As in The Riddermark? Sure - big blonde types riding around on horses chopping up orcses, rescuing hobbitses and allied to Gondor in Lord of the Rings..
(You can tell my knowledge of fashion brands is somewhat akin to my knowledge of quantum physics. As in "extermely limited".. Actually, I probably know more about quantum physics than fashion.)
"and they're damned fine items of outdoor kit for walking on t'moors." - then I grant you wearing rights for this, and only this, purpose. Fair enough.
But when every single bearded thirtysomething city IT drone on the tube is wearing identical North Face jackets with identical North Face backpacks with identical single-use plastic bottles pushed into identical sensible webbing pocket on their identical North Face backpacks, checking for the same inane tweet-crap on identical Apple Watches, or scrolling witlessly through identical Instagram feeds on their identical iPhones, all identically f**king well NOT LOOKING WHERE THEY ARE GOING AND WHO THEY ARE REPEATEDLY BANGING THEIR IDENTICAL BACKPACKS INTO, then you can surely see why a concrete ban, followed by a jail term is necessary for these identical f**kwits.
Oh, and if they're with their girlfriends - then they all look identical too. Black leggings? Check. Monochrome trainers? Check. Puffer jacket with fury collar? Check. Jesus. Central London is like Dawn of the F**king Boring Clones, it really is.
teacher who comes to class wearing Daisy Duke shorts
One of our French teachers at school (I was about 14 that year) used to wear fairly low-cut silk blouses on a regular basis. She she was a pretty attractive late-20's, it was noticable that the middle desks in her classroom were pretty much exclusively populated by boys just on the off-chance that she would bend down while doing marking or taking the register..
Wore some fairly racy bras from what I can remember. Mind you, this was the mid to late 1970's so she was probably a hippy as a student.
Her class had the highest attendance record of any of the languages department. Apart from the other French (and German) teacher - she was small, dressed conservatively and was quite strict. But no-one, ever, ever misbehaved in her lessons since she had the evil eye thing down to a science and could freeze post-pubescent kids with a single glance.
Forty-five or so years ago, I (accidentally) removed a teacher's skirt in class...
She had a wraparound skirt, I turned my chair to one side away from her, and managed to trap the fabric between the chair and the table. She turned the other way and, er, unwrapped herself...
Much younger and better looking than --->
you ain't seen nothing yet. I see typos and poor grammar REGULARLY - both coming from the admin staff and teachers in my kids' primary and secondary school. Both supposedly outstanding establishments (ah, the fine game of targets and achievements in a milion of fields). And, these are English teachers, i.e. teachers of English, not those that specialise in rocket science, mind you. I already stopped gently trying to point out those issues to them, because they look at me funny, like "what the fuck is wrong with you, old man?!" Indeed :(
Really, the entire letter is dreadful. Brown really should have had someone copy-edit it before she sent it out. Creating standard English prose in a consistent style suitable to your audience is something of a specialized skill; people who haven't developed it ought to learn to delegate to those who have.
In the era before personal computers were ubiquitous, of course, someone in a managerial role like Brown would have had a secretary or use of a secretarial pool, and would have dictated the letter, which would have been edited by the secretary in the process. Now most people produce their own business correspondence, and most of it is rubbish.
Creating standard English prose in a consistent style suitable to your audience is something of a specialized skill; people who haven't developed it ought to learn to delegate to those who have.
Given she has such a problem where she has resorted to trying to explain to the parents how to dress themselves, I don't think it really matters how she writes - ain't gonna be many wot can read it!
School Uniforms are known here in the US, but enforcement comes and goes with the weather. I seem to remember that perhaps 25% of school districts had some kind of uniform code back in the late '90s and early'00s, the last time it peaked ... it seems to be rather less than that these days.
For the most part, schools do employ a dress code of sorts. How draconian said dress code is depends on the individual school or district, though ... For the most part, kids can wear what they want, just so long as the girls don't wear whatever the hooker-becomes-a-singer o't'day calls "fashion", and the boys are cleanish. Gang colors are usually prohibited in areas inflicted by same, as are "dangerous" items of clothing (platform shoes above a certain height, spike heals, flip-flops, etc.). For the most part, t-shirts with provocative or obscene messages are right out, and sometimes tshirts as outerwear are banned entirely, as are shorts. Etc.
Essentially, it depends on how conservative the adults are in that particular school district. The kids (being kids) always seem to find a way around any given dress code anyway, just to piss off the adults.
With that said, I'll drop off my kids wearing any fucking clothing I want to wear, thank you very much. I'm driving my car, on public roads, and the school district has absolutely zero power to control what I choose to wear. The fine parents of James Madison High School in Houston, Texas should raise their collective finger at the assholes on the School Board and wear whatever infuriates them the most ... and then vote them all out in the next election. The fuckheads have overstepped their bounds. Let them know it before the infection spreads.
No, Alfred, I'm not "asserting my magical independence to be a twat", rather I'm showing the entire planet that I'm not a sheeple. It's NOT the school's decision to tell me, a parent, how I can and cannot dress. If it is in your tiny little corner of the world, well, all I can say is that I feel sorry for you. Exactly how many two-bit institutions do you have to keep happy with their your choice of clothing? Do they dictate your choice of jewelry, too? How about your automobile? Gawd/ess forbid you eat garlic and appear in public! Where does it end?
(Truth be told, my daughter took herself to school. On the rare occasion that I dropped her off, I was probably wearing jeans and a work shirt. Sometimes when I picked her up at the end of the day I was undoubtedly filthy ... but I honestly don't remember. It never seemed all that important. Still doesn't.)
If you showed up at my house wearing denim hot pants and a blouse cut low enough to show off your bra, I don't think it would be irrational or unreasonable of me to politely ask you to leave. Likewise, I don't think it's unreasonable of a school to request a certain standard of dress for anyone visiting the premises (though I am curious as to how they can enforce said rules). They of course should not be able to influence how you can or cannot dress, but I think you'll find there are still common societal rules governing that. I imagine the police would like a word with you if you chose not to dress at all, for example. I think a general respect for other people's sensibilities and freedoms is required here. As long as neither are being overly restricted, I don't think there's much to get heated up about.
I don't usually weigh in to arguments like this, but thought I'd give it a go for a change of pace. Oh, and please don't use the word "sheeple". It kind of lumps you in with all of the other conspiracy theorist...well, sheeple.
"If you showed up at my house wearing denim hot pants and a blouse cut low enough to show off your bra, I don't think it would be irrational or unreasonable of me to politely ask you to leave."
And when I have your electricity meter reading, sir, I shall.
"You do realize that portmanteau isn't actually English (it's French: porte-manteau), and is itself a portmanteau, right?"
Portmanteau was a type of suitcase, and was then a portmanteau. Nowadays its use is different, and perhaps should no longer be considered a portmanteau because it is not a new idea described with a blend of words.
No, they just reject the silliness of those that parrot words others have used thinking it makes them clever.
The term 'sheeple' is inherently dismissive and ignorant of the complexity and nuance of the very issues its users are pretending to find so important.
I know the hotpants make my butt look big[0], but I take exception to the low-cut blouse comment! What do you take me for, a studio-invented country/western singer?
[0] Hint: It's not the garment that makes your ass look fat, it's your fat ass that makes your ass look fat.
If you showed up at my house wearing denim hot pants and a blouse cut low enough to show off your bra, I don't think it would be irrational or unreasonable of me to politely ask you to leave.
Here's the good news: as a male, it is unlikely I will ever do that. At least not the hot pants. I'm also not into bra wearing much, but me being me I could probably take it up if it annoys a sufficient amount of people to make it worth my while.
:)
As far as I can tell from the letter, they only care about what parents might be wearing if on school property or inside school buildings. So they are fine with you wearing your studded leather mankini when you stop your motor scooter outside to kick your kids through the school gates; it's just they don't want you then striding up to the front desk and asking about Johnny's homework or whatever without wearing something a tad more conservative.
:-)
Damn reality intruding on this delightful scenario.
It wasn't so unreasonable folk thinking it was talking about what parents were wearing outside the school grounds though. It's not long since some school in Texas was having people arrested for turning up to pick their kids up on foot.
I know, it sounds unbelievable, but I checked carefully and it seems quite definitely true.
studded leather mankini is the most comfortable thing i have, lined in silk and talored to my every curve, I like to ware it when im coding, i can see my reflection/ It's now mandortry clothing and im thinking of making it a uniform for all emploiees, the lenght of the pink feather boa giving acess to more highly clasified areas, and 8 innch high heels, " so hard getting these things past work place health and safety in the public service.
No joke icon i'm seriouse.
While I agree the fast-food culture has given us here in the US entirely too many obese (or worse) people, be careful when throwing stones in your glass house. Seems to me that ElReg ran a few articles a while back pointing out that you folks in Blighty are just as likely to be obese as we are here in the US (plus or minus a couple of virtually meaningless percentage points).
"(plus or minus a couple of virtually meaningless percentage points)."
According to this UK parliamentary report, in 2016, 26.2% of adults were obese (BMI>30)*, and 3% were morbidly obese (BMI>40). According to this NIH report, 37.7% of US adults were obese in 2013 (so higher in 2016), of whom 7.7% were morbidly obese.
* Yes, BMI can only be used for bulk populations. Well, guess what? We are talking about bulk populations here. In more than one way.
sadly, this is very much true (about the UK), noticeably particularly when you're in a shopping centre. One thing that struck me when I visited France a couple of years ago, I couldn't put a finger to it, until I got back to the UK and visited my local (largish) Asda. In French supermarkets they had relatively few aisles with processed food. In the UK's Asda though, it is just a small proportion of fruit and veggies and dairy and "fresh" meat, and then, acres of aisles with canned junk and plastic-wrapped junk called "food" and frozen food, right to the very wall. Ah, yes, and a "fresh produce" counter or something similar.
That said, I've just come back from the US when I took public transport (a bus) in the suburbs of Washington, and the bus stopped by a school, and a group of about 12 - 15 teens boarded the bus. I think there were just TWO people I would consider "of normal weight", the rest were in various stages of ultrafat, fat, or just getting there, i.e. merely overweight. This I haven't seen in the UK, not yet. But hey, we're getting there, no doubt. Crisp, anyone?
Yes UK has its fair share of fatties, but those extreme cases you see rolling around USA on electric carts (I heard them called fat carts) they are far rarer in the UK.
The USA also has a lot of extremely physically fit people compared to here,
So yes, we have a lot of fatties, but the spread of weight range is not so wide as over there in Taco Bell territory.
Uk based here,
I used to run a fairground ride until last year which required putting customers in a harness (waist & legs) and judging their weight to set the ride up (underestimate and the customer doesn't come down / overestimate and they don't go up)
Over the 10 years with the ride it was noticeable that our harness size spread migrated...
from 25% small, 50% medium and 25% large
to 10% small, 20% med, 50% large and 20% wtf
we also noticed that we were having to turn away more customers as the ride simply couldn't support them safely.
noticeable that our harness size spread migrated..
It's also noticable that womens clothes sizes have changed - when we got married in the late 80's, t'missus wore a UK size 10 (not sure what that is in US terms).
Now she has to go for a size 8 (and, preferrably, a size 8 petite fitting - especially in Marksies - but they've always been famous for oversizing) to get anything that fits. Since she's a pretty similar size and weight to then (may have put on 5-6 pounds over the 30+ years) it's pretty obvious that the size calculations are changing to make larger people feel happier about their size.
Those "campaigning lawyers" are either imbeciles or ignorant of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).
While the court's decision (7–2 ) held that the First Amendment does apply to public schools, and that administrators have to demonstrate (constitutionally) valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom.
The money quote was: "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
BUT Tinker doesn't prohibit uniforms or clothing regulations, it simply requires a permissible justification, for example preventing disruption. So the problem with this edict (if it applied to the kids, not the parents) is that it's vague (e.g. the whole nonsense about cloths that might conceivably be pajamas).
The core problem here is that restrictions on a parent's first amendment rights has a looser nexus to the efficient running of the school: yes, you could ban parents wandering around with dodgy clothing, but it's a bigger issue if you want to summon the parent to discuss little Johnny's work or lack thereof: can you impose these demands on the parent that you've requested to come to see you (hint: not anywhere close to that level of specificity; you'd be OK with a "dressed in a way that won't be disruptive".
As I think the point is not you cannot wear what you want but if you claim to be an adult start acting like one and set an example for the brats. This means when in certain public places you should have enough sense to dress with a minimum standard of taste and decency, not like trailer trash that just wandered out of bed and grab anything they could find on the floor.
This indirectly points to a common problem in US schools, the brats often are poorly disciplined at home and bring their lack of discipline to the school. The school is then caught with 'parents' who do not care what happens to their spawn and are forcing the school to be the parent; with the school failing.
And my point is that it's not up to the school to make that choice. Who died and left them in charge?
The problem you point out in your second paragraph is a whole 'nuther kettle o'worms, and isn't actually addressed by forcing a parental unit dress code.
First the parents are on school grounds. Second the school can set reasonable policies to control the situation. So the question is not whether the school can, they can but rather is it a reasonable policy. I suspect someone will sue to block this and it will a crap shoot to know how the court will rule.
not like trailer trash that just wandered out of bed and grab anything they could find on the floor.
Any good trailer trash knows not to keep ur good gear on the floor where the rats can chew it, you keep it in the garbash bin were they can't get!
Uniforms are a great leveller. When I went to a Canadian school, my parents didn't have much money, and so I had a very few outfits that had to be worn down to holes at the elbow before they would be replaced. It was really clear whose parents were poor and whose were not. When I came to the UK, I looked at schools full of kids in exactly the same clothing and thought what a relief that would have been.
Also, school is where they teach you to be a member of society. So if, Jake, you learned to stick a finger up to The Man (in this case a School Board, oooo the danger) and do what they hell you want, then I'd say you learned a bad lesson, that is, to live with a sense of grievance and a chip on your shoulder. Better to learn to make your principled stand on something that really matters.
"Uniforms are a great leveller."
Having lived both sides of the equation, I strongly disagree.
I went to school both in Blighty and the US. Trust me, even in so-called Uniform you could tell which kids parents had money and which kids parents were skint. And who was a punk, who was a mod, who was into pop, and the poor laughed at kids who had been brainwased by the BBC into believing that Abba was decent tunage. You can try to stamp out individuality with a uniform, but most kids will rebel against it. I think it's in the human DNA ...
When I went to school, the main differentiator was shoes. I wore Kickers, as did a lot of people. Cheap shoes meant your family were poor.
You could also tell the very poor kids were poor because their white shirts would somehow be grey. holes in the jumpers, etc.
"When I came to the UK, I looked at schools full of kids in exactly the same clothing and thought what a relief that would have been."
Oh, you got to go to school in clothes that fitted? for the expensive bits of uniform I got second hand stuff that came in the traditional two sizes, too large and too small, and you had to keep in good nick so you could trade it in at the end of term.
At least as a bloke I got to wear nondescript black pants and shoes, some of lasses were stuck with pinafores and dresses.
"When I came to the UK, I looked at schools full of kids in exactly the same clothing and thought what a relief that would have been."
Until you find that the school has decided uniform includes a "white shirt with school name embroidered in school colourrs" which is "available from one local supplier at only 3-4x the price of a standard white shirt and too bad if you wanted to buy cotton shirts as they are only in man-made fibre" and that they also supply the "only approved grey trousers ... what do you mean they don't stock a size that fits your son - its not our fault his very tall and very thin - he should be overweight like all the other kids" and the real clincher "track suit trousers without pockets or zips due to 'health and safety' ... the shop sells some made by Canterbury which meet this requirement and only cost £35 a pair"
Our school uniform included a blazer which could be purchased fro co-op in polyester for cheap.
Or from.a tailor in woollen form for twice the price.
Woollen blazer wearers would look down their nose at polyester blazers, until it rained and they go wet. The wet woollen blazers stank of piss.
It doesn't matter to you, Hollerithevo, that other people want to stick their noses into things that are none of their business? Really? You WANT to be told how to express yourself? You WANT to be forced to conform to some other person's vision of "normal"? From your other writings here, that quite surprises me.
It's a slippery slope. Be careful where you place your feet.
Sticking two fingers up at petty bureaucracy is a important life lesson.
Teaching your children to dress suitably for the circumstances (Weather, occasion, company) is an important lesson.
Personally I'm with jake on this. Respect your freedoms or kiss them goodbye.
"With that said, I'll drop off my kids wearing any fucking clothing I want to wear, thank you very much. I'm driving my car, on public roads, and the school district has absolutely zero power to control what I choose to wear. "
Well, the letter did say the ban applied inside the school. So I suppose that means dropping off inside the school grounds or attending the school for meetings or whatever.
It's bed wear apparently and beds mean sex. Mind you, so do children. Children are relatives and relatives are evidence of sex; and sex has no place in the schoolyard.
Well, strictly speaking there is a place for sex in the schoolyard, and that's behind the bike sheds, but you know what I mean.
At least the School is trying to do something for the next generation.
I guess the alternative is to have the school principal standing out there and loudly declaring which parents are trailer trash and which are likely to be doctors and other well paid professionals. But then that tends to be more embarrasing for the children of said trailer trash, so I guess the option the school is trying is the best one.
And the principal is going to know based on how they dress, and presumably the vehicle they drive? What if I pick up my kid in the farm truck (I need to stop by the feed store on the way home), after having cleaned out the hog pen and chicken coop? Is the principal allowed to stop me? As a parent, if you were in the same situation, would the principal succeed in keeping you from picking up your child?
My daughter (who reads this forum) just called to remind me that the above actually happened back in the day ... needless to say, I had forgotten the incident as "not important".
A bright, goofy, neon !PINK! cap with the fake dreds sewn in along the brim.
An eye-searingly bright plaid disco shirt with butterfly lapels, fake chest hair sewn in the v-neck panel, illuminated nipple spinners, & a blinking fake bellybutton light that strobes in time to the music.
Neon rainbow suspenders with pink flamingos, purple dinosaurs, gold lizards, blue Smurfs, green Leprechauns in Hawaiian gear, & dogs with sunglasses embroidered all over them.
Extra large cargo shorts with lime green camouflage, irridescent zebra stripes, infrared ("BlackLight") polka dots, & embroidered masturbating monkies all over the place.
Knee high rainbow toe socks with garters to show off my gloriously knobby knees & spider webby varicose veins.
A pair of open-toed sandals with animal head motifs so I look like I've got a pair of bunnies, ducks, elephants, or wat-have-you impaled on my feet; bonus points if they make squeaky animal noises with each step.
The more garish, outlandish, & screams of "My EYES! My EYES! They're BURNING!" I can cause the better.
Why?
Because I'm insane & love it.
*Blows a feisty raspberry & steals all the MindBleach*
Are you ok? You sound delirious
It's probably the heat - fastened rubber trousers? In Texas? Probably dying of dehrydration - even the the bike clips would be stopping it running out the bottom..
You could add a moisture tube a-la Fremen and recycle the liquid.
Shadow Systems,
I applaud your dress sense. That all seems pretty sensible to me. However, I do have one teensy tiny question:
a blinking fake bellybutton light that strobes in time to the music.
Does this mean your real bellybutton illuminates normally? In which case, allow me to salute your disco-hotness!
My entire body is bioluminescent & glows faintly in the dark. Parts of me are brighter illumination levels than others.
I control the light levels coming out of my various holes by clenching/relaxing the muscles to make it brighter/darker as desired. Yes I have muscles in my bellybutton, don't we all?
As for my "disco hawtness" I'll let the music speak (sing) for itself. ;-)P
Sorry for that. I always get confused at the EMF spectrum Humans are supposed to be limited to experiencing.
Personally I can see not only the entire EMF spectra but Octerene, Plaid, & ~Q~ as well.
<Hippy stoned voice>Dude... everything is so... trippy!"</Hippy drugged voice>
Worked at a school in the UK that did exactly the same.
Parents who aren't dressed appropriately weren't allowed on-site (and the pickup/dropoff was inside the school grounds and the kids were little so weren't allowed to leave until someone appropriate came and picked them up / dropped them off).
Nobody really complained, and it stopped the onesie / dressing gown mums.
Seriously, people, your kid's expected to be washed, dressed, in a smart uniform, with their kit, on-time, and ready to go. And you can't even throw a pair of jogging bottoms and a t-shirt on?
But then, I've also worked in schools where it's not at all uncommon for kids to arrive un-fed, not having slept all night ("because mummy doesn't tell me to go to bed"), in filthy clothes that are weeks unwashed, etc. etc.
"the kids were little so weren't allowed to leave until someone appropriate came and picked them up / dropped them off"
I walked to school by myself (well, with friends) starting from kindergarten. Bicycles were allowed starting in 2nd grade (7ish years old), but I usually walked. Palo Alto, late '50s/early '60s. Same for my daughter a couple decades later, different town here in California. Parents these days are too paranoid, they should let their kids be kids.
Been a standard practice in most (primary/prep) schools across the UK that parents have to collect or explicitly notify of an authorised person coming to collect (e.g. in some prep schools, they will organise a driver or PA to come collect, I kid you not!). Not secondary, where you're pretty much left to your own devices.
Worked in state and private schools for 20 years. It's the exception to be allowed to walk to school in primary/prep (the school would certainly raise concerns about it).
Interesting with the differences.
In Denmark, kids were expected to be able to walk to school from about age 7 (based on my son from 99').
In Switzerland, it was required, and I heard of social services checking up on a family in Basel because the 8yo (of foreign background) did not walk to school on his own.
The problem here is that the list is (unconstitutionally) vague and, well, dumb.
For example: no "satin cap or bonnet ... for any reason". Does that include sating Yarmulkes? It not, how do you know? If so, that's an impermissible infringement by the government on one's free exercise of religion...
No attire "that could possibly be pajamas"? That would include a lot of fairly innocuous t-shirt and loose trousers outfits...
"Jeans torn from your buttocks (behind) to all the way down showing lots of skin"? That implies that jeans torn... that don't show lots of skin are OK, right?
"Leggings that are showing your bottom and are not covered ... from the front or the back"? If the front is covered but not the back, is that OK? And define leggings? Would capri-length trouserings count?
"Men wearing undershirts will not be permitted" is just dumb: it's seems likely there's an implied "without an overshirt" implied, but who knows?
And it closes with "any attire that is totally unacceptable for the school setting", which leaves me wondering what the previous laundry list of forbidden outfits was all about...
And so on. And while the intent seems very well intentioned, the overall message is that this principal, Carlotta Brown, is incapable of writing concisely, is sloppy in her language, and is vague about the law as it applies to constitutional limits on school power, which all in all is a sad indictment on the education system in Texas: how _DID_ she get that job?
The problem here is that the list is (unconstitutionally) vague and, well, dumb.
I think I can help with a couple...
For example: no "satin cap or bonnet ... for any reason". Does that include sating Yarmulkes? It not, how do you know? If so, that's an impermissible infringement by the government on one's free exercise of religion...
While in some respects visually similar to some caps, a Yarmulke is NOT a cap, so not an issue. Other types - well look to the local culture and you'll see what it is.
No attire "that could possibly be pajamas"? That would include a lot of fairly innocuous t-shirt and loose trousers outfits....
Pyjamas are generally pretty obvious as to what they are. T-shirt and trousers aren't pyjamas. If they were, they'd be called "Pyjamas" instead of "t-shirt and trousers"
"Jeans torn from your buttocks (behind) to all the way down showing lots of skin"? That implies that jeans torn... that don't show lots of skin are OK, right?
A couple of my gardening jeans have the knee gone in them. They don't show lots of skin (although with my knees, I doubt anyone will want to see enough of them to carry out any measurements). Others have jeans with lots of rips in them, some in rather inappropriate places for the overly-prude (ie 90% of yanks if their lawmakers and tv 'standards' are anything to go by!)). Some wear jeans that cover less than the average micro-filament wire.
"Leggings that are showing your bottom and are not covered ... from the front or the back"? If the front is covered but not the back, is that OK? And define leggings? Would capri-length trouserings count?
"Bottoms" generally aren't visible from the front. Unless you're talking about "front bums", which are generally called "breasts" or "tits" not "bottoms". Some people have been known to wear panties and leggings, nothing "more appropriate" for being out and about. Not bad if she's hot (or he - if that's your thing), pretty NOT good if she's an average Texan with a BMI > 60 or male (unless that's your thing).
"Men wearing undershirts will not be permitted" is just dumb: it's seems likely there's an implied "without an overshirt" implied, but who knows?
Yeah, I guess they messed up there. Still, depending on the type of undershirt worn, it might be a good idea to keep such men well away from kids.
And it closes with "any attire that is totally unacceptable for the school setting", which leaves me wondering what the previous laundry list of forbidden outfits was all about...
Pretty obvious. Gang colours (if that's a problem in Texas, clothes with offensive pictures or messages, burka's with everything but the crotch covered, trench-coats with deep candy-filled pockets.......
And so on. And while the intent seems very well intentioned, the overall message is that this principal, Carlotta Brown, is incapable of writing concisely, is sloppy in her language,
Looks pretty clear for a starting point, able to be refined later as things go.
and is vague about the law as it applies to constitutional limits on school power,
IANAL, but I don't really see anything wrong with it (so long as you know the difference between a "bonnet" and a "yarmulke" :) ). Their land, their rules. Your "freedom of expression" ends at my boundary, especially where my family is involved.
which all in all is a sad indictment on the education system in Texas: how _DID_ she get that job?
By showing she cares about the wellbeing of the sproglydytes even if the sperm/egg donors don't? By showing she has a decent grasp of basic En'grish?
The teenage daughter of a friend of mine objected to being collected by her father when he was wearing his work clothes, as it was "embarrassing".
The next time he collected her while wearing a dress suit complete with tails, which was apparently "really embarrassing".
He recently purchased an inflatable T-Rex costume ...
...that most adults do a double take on before backing away with a pinched face as if someone is abupot to pop a can of soda in their face, barely incited a inaudible grunt at my kid's school.
They've been using the Internet longer than some of their teachers. By now it is safe to assume that the average 9-year old probably already has seen everything, if even just in videogames.
And how about htis: if you want your school to prepare for real society, that includes the view you will have as a WalMart greeter - because that is most of these kids' future anyway.
My take on this is that the school is being completely reasonable and within its rights by making these demands of parents, but is departing from sensible behavior in one respect: its willingness to expend energy in fighting a losing battle.
Of course, this shows that the United States is a free country. If this happened in China, the principal of the school would be arrested for disclosing state secrets, since everything that embarasses the government is a state secret.
took them to school only once, on their first day?
Nope. But, in my case, I had 3 older brothers - who all went to the same school as me (the oldest one was 5 years ahead of me) so I had plenty of escort to school.
Of course, once I got a pushbike (when I was about 10), I cycled to school by myself. And up the biggest hill in my borough :-(
Mum went back to work as a nurse fairly early on (when I was about 7) as we needed the second wage. (My parents had 4 growing boys and two sets of parents to support).
Some of the verboten items make sense but I cannot figure out why they want to outlaw satin caps and bonnets? Not too long ago, a respectable woman wasn't dressed properly for public places, even in Western countries, unless she wore some headgear. As you can see on old photos, bonnets were common.
My son is blessed with a nice drawer full of very nice shirts but day after day kept insisting on wearing the same ratty old shirt with the school logo on it.
I know that he had school pride but the missus and I thought he was just being lazy.
When we asked him why he kept doing that, the embarrassed answer came back, "so-and-so doesn't have a dad, and his mom doesn't have much of a job so he had only a couple sets of clothes, so my friends and I don't like to show off new stuff..."
In Ontario, Canada the Roman Catholic school system dictates school dress - blouses and skirts - the latter of a defined length. It has a 'liberal' attitude since trousers or pants and variations for necks (plain, frills, non-existent).
Stand outside any RC school at close of day and you will see many female students busily pulling their skirts way above stipulated level - rolling the surplus around their belts.
In VietNam school dress is simple (and economic). And it works fine for all family economic levels.
Females often wear white traditional Áo Dài, a popular form is a tight-fitting silk tunic worn over trousers. Áo translates as shirt; Dài means "long". The upper tunic has 'tails' which extend to the length of the trousers. The dress is actually two separate garments with a discrete 'air gap' concealed under the 'tails'.
Male students wear shorts (junior grades) and trousers (senior grades), a white shirt and a neck scarf along the lines of a boy scout.
Áo Dài and Western style clothing are quite acceptable for ordinary, daily, wear in the country.
@Jaitch:
In my grade school there was no uniform. I was only in TDCSB High school for 2 years. I was at NMcN, and of course ND was our partner school, both were uniformed, but CN was not. It is somewhat dependent on the parent-teacher council's position. Oddly, the ND girls generally didn't *have* to shorten their skirts back then, most of them wore blouse out and pulled the skirt down. I'm now east of there by some range, and we've three catholic schools in the area, only one of which is uniformed.
You're probably right, but as with most of that letter, it's impermissibly vague: some items it gets very precise (e.g. explaining what "buttocks" means), other times it's not (here, and "very low cut tops" -- define "very" -- and "shorts that are up to your behind", which is simply word salad).
What she meant was clear, and is the second half of the last bullet ("any attire that is ... unacceptable for the school setting"). But by creating a sloppy and sometimes incoherent laundry list of prohibited outfits, she's shot herself in the foot.
A parent could get an injunction prohibiting enforcement without breaking a sweat, and quite right, too: it's a school, but also a government building, and the governments needs to be clear and transparent when creating rules.
My daughter went to a primary school on the edge of a large council estate.
It's the only primary school I've seen with a bin at the gates for cigarette ends, and I saw a few sights dropping her off in the mornings. The lowlight was a combination of short nightdress and Ugg boots.... not a pretty sight.
No, it's sane people objecting to bad government, and it's worse because apparently it's a poor area where people are less likely to push back on badly crafted regulations.
And that's without the inherent problems of disrespecting minority cultures by imposing "white elitism" (your words, whatever you meant) to cultural standards.
[ If the average person-on-the-street in a mostly-minority neighborhood wears some/all of the prohibited outfits, then this policy prohibits "the average person", whether or not you like the policy or not. C.f. prohibitions against dreadlocks, etc. ]
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
