This school year I have noticed an usually high level of hostility from the school office workers, including school prinicpals and the like. The subtext of every single conversation is basically “shut the fuck up and go away”. Conversations are very short, simmering with some sort of impatient rage and very VERY unhelpful.

For instance, this year my youngest wore her blue skinny jeans to school. Now they weren’t denim blue, but kind of a pastel powder blue. Please note that the dress code only specified BLUE. No shade caveats. Just blue.

I get a phone call from a crying, distraught 13 year old that she needs another pair of pants because her jeans are not dress code. I ask why and she said they were the wrong color blue.

Excuse me? The dress code page I PRINTED OUT 30 days before school started has no reference to SHADE of blue. It says all pants must be blue, khaki, grey or black.  I ask to speak to the office worker bee(which turns out to be a very hostile hispanic woman) and she tells me that all jeans must be DENIM BLUE. Uh, that isn’t on the dress code you have POSTED on the school website.

She informs me in the iciest tones that THEY had a school MEETING and INFORMED the students that blue means denim blue. Well happy days. Why the HELL didn’t you tell ME, yanno the one that PURCHASES school clothes? And how about you refunding the $60 bucks those jeans cost because I purchased them based on the FRICKEN POSTED DRESS CODE.

Oh, and when said daughter gets home, she tells me they had to round up 3 teachers to have a quorum to determine if the jeans were the wrong color.

Does anyone see a problem with this? How about the staff err in favor of the CHILD? Since when does school equal a police state? And how does this particular action “promote self esteem and a positive learning environment”? You just criminalized my daughter on the COLOR OF HER JEANS?

How fucked up is that?

The lazy days of summer are over and cooler temperatures are flirting on the horizon. It’s back to school time. Big yellow buses wind their way through the neighborhoods collecting our most precious cargo.  But there is an insidious predator lurking,  invited with open arms by our school administrators to prey on our children. Sanctioned even,  by our elected officials with a greasy “No Child Left Behind* smile who promise parents a free and useful education for our kids.

I have the glossy paged, ever so professionally printed evidence in my hands. What, you may ask, is this horrible perfidy? Well, my friend, I’ll tell you. It’s the School Fund Raiser, which should be titled “Governement Sponsored Child Prostitution”.

Who are these people, these businesses who shamelessly use my child to pad their bottom line? How did they so effortlessly insinuate into the public school system to use and abuse and discard my child’s hopes and expectations with the promise the Free School Party if you sell 75 items?  Items so grossly overpriced even the most hopelessly addicted shop-aholic would cringe and hide their credit cards? More importantly, Why do our Elected Officials turn their heads and make themselves blind to this scheme of prostituting my child for the empty promise of raising  “funds” for our schools?  And more than that, why must we recieve these utterly contemptible fund raisers more than twice a year? Are our schools so ill funded that it becomes acceptable to allow our children to be pimped out in such a shameless fashion?

The teachers I know absolutely abhor the fundraisers. They distract the kids, and more importantly, take valuable class time to collect, collate and distribute. And woe to the teacher that improperly recorded the sales. More often than not she is required to issue the refund or provide out of her/his own pocket, the funds to cover the error. Sure, there are teachers that give lip service to the monstrosity because they are not provided with enough materials in the classroom to even cover their state mandated curricula, but that does not mean they agree with it.

I do know that our schools are badly in need of stuff, but how is that the onus of the children? State Representatives and Congress should look a little closer at our schools. Trim the fat at the administration level (and oh, the stories I could tell about THAT, but that is for another post). I just don’t see how pimping out my kids is in their best interest. There isn’t any way you can spin it to make me believe it.

Personally, I’d like to see more of a community effort. It takes a village to raise a child, right? That’s the line we have been fed. Well, how about acting on that propaganda. I’ll gladly spend $100.00+ and cook * all day* Saturday making spagetti for 200 people. They can sell that instead of the $25.00 four ounce box of chocolate. Not only would the school get all the profits, it would at least bring the parents together for one night. Hell, it might even inspire those parents to get invovled.

If you have children in school and have been presented with the School Fund Raiser, I challenge you to write on the envelope;
“I will not permit you to pimp my child. We refuse to participate in Government Sponsored Child Prostitution”.

Yes, I know your kids will give you that look, like you just stomped their favorite puppy to death in front of them, but you’re the parent. Cowboy up and take a stand to protect your kids from charlatans and con men dressed up as the Candy Man

I hate the dress code. No, I loathe the dress code. Abhor. Despise.
At any rate, since I don’t get a vote on it and the Megalomaniacs in the School Administration desperately need to discharge stupid rules for the sake of, well, their personal power trips, we have a dress code.

“A students appearance has much to do with the way the student feels about himself or herself. Appearance also affects the way in which other students respond to them and has a great deal to do with student success and the learning atmosphere of the school. Because of this the Dickinson School District has established a standardized dress code for students.”

Yeah, right. I’m sure EVERY kid in the school feels SO much better dressed like a Used Car Salesman.  And I’m quite sure they all respond to Used Car salesmen with respect. Personally, being forced to look like a dork never did anything for my self esteem.

Okay, my personal feelings aside, can they PLEASE INFORM their faculty what is on the handout that was MAILED to me? Please? I am SINCERELY tired of having my kid call me for “Dress Code Violations” which *aren’t* violations according to their little communist propaganda. Twice my kid has been yanked out of class for her shirt and TWICE I had to spend an HOUR calling the principle to VERIFY that her shirt is, indeed, within their dress code. TWICE. BOTH times the assistant principle agreed with me when I told her to sing line and verse WHERE my kids shirt is in violation of their stupid dress code.

Incidentially, I have not met a single parent or teacher that agrees with the dress code. In fact, it is universally hated by all. The “Dress Code” was sold to us as a method of deterring gang violence. Uh, hello? When you camoflage them, how the hell do you keep track of them? Wouldn’t you WANT some sort of visual cues to determine who is going to be your problem students?
Why would the Administration want to create such a hostile environment between students and faculty? Or between Faculty and Parents? It makes no sense. Since our drop-out rate is higher than the national average, I think they should be THRILLED the kids show up at all.