Ok is it just me or is this crazy. Our schools policy is that if you are in 2 fights in one year (even walking home from school) and even if your just defending yourself and didnt start the fight you are out for 90 days. Basically the kid is going to have to repeat thier grade level. And this isnt just for older kids it applies to little kids. My son is the smart brainy type so basically het gets picked on a bit and he was in one fight already this year where he was defending himself and was suspended. Then apparently yesterday a kid pushed him over the side of the over pass by the freeway when he was walking home from school and he didnt fight back but there's still a chance he could be suspended for 90 days. This is rediculous!!! Kids who are the victoms are being punished. And what do they want these kids who get picked on to do...Stand there and get the tar beat out of them so they dont get kicked out of school.

Oh no! I think I just posted just to post! An evil force has apparently overtaken me... :hurt

i do think that our schools have ridiculous rules, but i think they have been FORCED to make such drastic rules due to being sued, etc. that is what our world has come to, people sue their own moms.

private schools have just as crazy rules, based on other premises. for example, my son is in a private school. he is not allowed to touch a girl-EVER, not even on the playground. they cannot even play tag. it can result in a paddling or suspension. i think that is crazy.

also, i heard once of a kindergartener being expelled because she made a toy gun out of lego's and started pointing it around the room saying "pow" "pow". i don't know how true that story was, but it is among the many that i have heard happen now.

I can believe it about the legos because years (like 5? I think) ago my oldest son made a paper gun and got suspended for it. Cause he pointed it someone.

And I know for a fact that here the schools responsible for the child till they get to your door. In our apartment complex the kids all have to walk up to the clubhouse to catch the bus. And my youngest was the target of a bully. Who would attack him after they got off the bus out of sight of the bus, And the principal told me that the school has jurisdiction till he touches the doorknob to come inside.

yea our schools have ridiculous rules but they have had to resort to this thanks to people being so quick to sue the school systems.

Well, I for one remember getting paddled in the second grade. Mrs. Lawrence took me in the janitor's closet next to the classroom and whacked my ass. Other than the surpreme embarassment of it, I don't recall being scarred for life....no wait.....isn't that just about the time I started gaining weight? Yup. Scarred for life. I should sue the Houston Indepedent School District for my poor scarred psyche. Actually I think we Baby Boomers came out in pretty good shape considering. Of course we are known for our drinking and indiscriminate adultery, but other than that I think we did okay.

Ridiculous school rules?

When I was in school....

• You couldn't wear pants to school if you were a girl.
  
• You couldn't wear what we called "coulots" (coulottes? Koo-lots?---anyway, they were skirt which were split into two legs down the middle...maybe they call them "skorts" now)
  
• Couldn't wear open toes sandles (Oh the SEX of it!)
  
• Couldn't wear patent leather shoes (boys could look up and see your undies reflected) (Oh the SEX of it!)
  
• Dresses? Kneel on the floor girl! Not more than 2" off the floor or you are sent home to change.
  
• Boys hair...can't be below their earlobe...
  
• Bangs....only ABOVE the eyebrows

It's a wonder we survived.

Now my 17 year old nephew is in an alternative school where you cannot wear the colors blue or red....at ALL. Now we're talking about a blue polo shirt with white stripes....typical Izod fare....nope. Verbotten!

What have we come to?

Ridiculous school rules?

When I was in school....

• You couldn't wear pants to school if you were a girl.
  
• You couldn't wear what we called "coulots" (coulottes? Koo-lots?---anyway, they were skirt which were split into two legs down the middle...maybe they call them "skorts" now)
  
• Couldn't wear open toes sandles (Oh the SEX of it!)
  
• Couldn't wear patent leather shoes (boys could look up and see your undies reflected) (Oh the SEX of it!)
  
• Dresses? Kneel on the floor girl! Not more than 2" off the floor or you are sent home to change.
  
• Boys hair...can't be below their earlobe...
  
• Bangs....only ABOVE the eyebrows

It's a wonder we survived.

Now my 17 year old nephew is in an alternative school where you cannot wear the colors blue or red....at ALL. Now we're talking about a blue polo shirt with white stripes....typical Izod fare....nope. Verbotten!

What have we come to?

haha..the rules that you had, my son's school still has. very old fashioned.

If any teacher attempted to paddle my child I'd be in the school paddling the teacher. Not saying I disagree with spankings, but that would be MY job as a parent, not the teacher's job.

at my son's schools if it comes to paddling, they call the parent to come up to the school to do the paddling. luckily, i haven't had to do that.

At the last school I taught at, all of the kids had to tuck in their shirts, which didn't work out real well for those who were on the "chubby" side--kind of embarrassing for them!

Then apparently yesterday a kid pushed him over the side of the over pass by the freeway when he was walking home from school and he didnt fight back but there's still a chance he could be suspended for 90 days.

I believe the school is failing to protect your child as they are required to do.

I'm big on school uniforms. In Australia nearly all schools have uniforms anyway and I really think they're a good thing. But public school uniforms are often a pretty loose interpretation, short dresses, odd socks, shocking hairstyles, make up etc. The girls from our local secondary college look like tarts. I would never allow my daughter to go to school looking like that.

But I'm totally behind a proper uniform - shirt, tie, blazer, proper school skirts (not short!), tidy hair, no weirdly dyed hair, no facial piercings worn to school, school shoes, sports uniforms etc. I think kids have a right to their individuality but they need to learn there's times and places to express it and times and places to conform. And if they're totally the type of kid that's artistic or creative or whatever and are NEVER going to end up working in the corporate world or similar, then the chances are they wont be at the type of school that has uniform requirements like that anyway.

Ack, I'm such a middle class conservative white person, lol. I just assume my kids will be doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc like most of my family and Doug's family, so I tend to believe in the type of education that takes kids there. As a teacher myself, I have to be very mindful of the fact that there's no right or wrong, no one way to success, no one way to bring kids up.

But I still dont think a little old fashioned discipline, rules and respect hurt any kid.

Now my 17 year old nephew is in an alternative school where you cannot wear the colors blue or red....at ALL. Now we're talking about a blue polo shirt with white stripes....typical Izod fare....nope. Verbotten!

What have we come to?

That's probably because blue and red are major gang colors. It may not seem like it, but that regulation is probably just to protect the kids. If they allowed those colors, there'd probably be kids getting attacked or killed. I mean, I've heard many stories of innocent kids being killed because they accidentally wore the wrong colors in the wrong areas. Years ago, I remember hearing about a very young child (around 4, I think) being killed by gang members in a drive-by shooting because he was wearing a jacket that happened to be the rival gang's color.

Here's an article from the Houston area that talks about gang signs.

my son's schools has very traditional uniforms. they must always have a belt, tucked in shirts, white socks (which i would prefer navy..), etc. their hair must never touch their ears, etc. i like it. i personally also like the new "beatles" style haircuts..guess they aren't new. but my son just has to wear his normal ole' boy cut.

i think uniforms cut down on a lot of teasing, but still teasing will happen (obviously with the heavier kids and the shirt tails....perhaps they just need a better size)...i don't know....

my kids school system started *uniforms* this year. And boy was my daughter pissed. I personally think the kids look MUCH better. But I went to a catholic school where you HAD to buy your uniforms from a specific company and you got *Fitted* for them over the summer break so they were tailored to you personally.

The school system has a very lax uniform policy compared to that IMHO.

But they had to impliment it because of gang stuff and because kids were wearing horrid stuff to school.

This is one rule I don't think is overboard. Because current trends in teen clothing have gotten really stupid. I mean geeze wearing your crotch to your knees is something I would have never done cause that meant you were wearing someone elses hand me downs that didn't fit or something. LOL.. Now its fashion.

Cant say I understand it at all.

now my kids have to wear Slacks kinds of pants in khaki, dark blue, black or brown..

SOLID color polo or oxford type shirts. All Shirts must have a collar unless its a sweater/vest.

Solid color socks in white black or brown. Belts. And all shirts MUST be tucked in unless its a sweater with a 2in band at the waist.

Skirts/shorts/skorts must be 2in below the knees, And there can be NO LOGOS at all on any of the clothes.

But back on rediculious rules. A couple I think are stupid. Kids can no longer carry purses/backpacks to class. But yet if they don't have the proper materials for the class they get wrote up. They can no longer get permission to leave the class to go to the bathroom.

This really sucks for girls who need to carry tampons/pads and may need to change often. And since most girls slacks don't have pockets I told my daughter to carry her pads and lay em on her desk and if the teacher complained to tell them she had NO pockets and can't carry a purse so what else could she do. lol.

Dunno If she did it or not.

They get a 5 min passing period in jr high and HS. Now kids are expected not only to go to their lockers but to use the bathroom, go to the fountain etc. all in 5 min and get to class on time. as HUGE as the schools are these days thats close to impossible.

They are not allowed to have hard plastic binders of any kind.

And technically they aren't allowed trapper keepers either. But both my kids have them and have not gotten in trouble. Maybe because they are soft ones.

Zero-Tolerance equals Zero-Intelligence. We are creating a nation of emasculated auto-bots.

It is a shame that the schools have taken some extreme measures. And yes, sometimes they go too far. But they are only trying to protect our children. In todays society, we have elementary students taking weapons to school, we have kids having sex and using drugs. The times have changed and so the rules need to get stricter.

I live in a small rural community, the town I live in is only of about 10,000, but even here we encounter these problems. Schools have to adopt these 0 tolerance policies because of all the problems that have come to be without them in place.

I'm big on school uniforms. In Australia nearly all schools have uniforms anyway and I really think they're a good thing. But public school uniforms are often a pretty loose interpretation, short dresses, odd socks, shocking hairstyles, make up etc. The girls from our local secondary college look like tarts. I would never allow my daughter to go to school looking like that.

But I'm totally behind a proper uniform - shirt, tie, blazer, proper school skirts (not short!), tidy hair, no weirdly dyed hair, no facial piercings worn to school, school shoes, sports uniforms etc. I think kids have a right to their individuality but they need to learn there's times and places to express it and times and places to conform. And if they're totally the type of kid that's artistic or creative or whatever and are NEVER going to end up working in the corporate world or similar, then the chances are they wont be at the type of school that has uniform requirements like that anyway.

Ack, I'm such a middle class conservative white person, lol. I just assume my kids will be doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc like most of my family and Doug's family, so I tend to believe in the type of education that takes kids there. As a teacher myself, I have to be very mindful of the fact that there's no right or wrong, no one way to success, no one way to bring kids up.

But I still dont think a little old fashioned discipline, rules and respect hurt any kid.

I think with today's standards its ok to have fun colored hair and facial peircings. Yes, some industries might not like it, but with others it really is ok. I have three nose piercings, for example, and I've been known to have oddly colored hair (currently I favor blue streaks). this has never negatively affected me employment wise, and I know of others with things like multiple facial peircings who don't have problems with work.