A school in Dallas, TX, is over-the-top in the zero tolerance department. The new dress code is being strictly enforced, to the point where an untucked shirt guarantees a student a suspension:
Teresa Montgomery said she was enraged when her straight-A student called her in tears telling her she was going to be suspended. "She is not a problem child; she's never been in trouble," Montgomery said.
Montgomery's daughter, Raylee, was suspended after an administrator noticed the 13-year-old girl's shirt had become untucked. The girl said she apologized, tucked in her shirt and asked if she could continue to class but was not allowed.
Administrators say dress code violations are more routine at the beginning of the school year, as students test the limits.
Or, as students slowly start to realize that utterly unintentional, innocuous acts are going to be punished severely. Over 700 students have been suspended in two months thanks to this draconian punishment system. And this improves the atmosphere of the high school how?
Of more than a dozen districts contacted by The Dallas Morning News, none suspend students for dress code violations unless they become disciplinary problems.
Terry Barnard, a Duncanville school board member, said the board asked administrators over the summer to tighten dress code enforcement after years of complaints that students were breaking the rules with no consequences.
Oookay. So they go all the way over into serious consequences for an untucked shirt. This is as absurd as no consequences. There's an argument to be made for dress codes; there's no argument to be made for scaring 13-year-olds into compliance with a set of standards so rigorous that teachers would not necessarily be able to comply with them.
It boggles the mind to think that the school is comfortable with giving teachers authority to suspend a student over an unintentional dress code violation, but doesn't trust those same teachers to simply tell students to tuck in their shirts, and make it stick. If the kid says no, or talks back, then the teacher can start to consider discliplinary options. Until then, just help the kids correct their clothing errors (are they going to start suspending girls for runs in their stockings too?) and get them to class on time.
Posted by kswygert at September 30, 2003 02:00 PM