Not so much a school policy so much a pet peeve of our high school hall monitor/bouncer/enforcer.
Kids nearly having sex in the halls ? No problem. Language that would make Red Fox blush? No problem. Drug dealing No problem. Bullying the resident nerd with atomic wedgies? No problem. The aroma of weed wafting out the bathrooms? No problem.
But dare to actually wear a hat while walking down the main hallway that was 15 feet wide and nearly as high? Oh man, were you in deep shit with Mr. Coushawn (sp?) now.
And this was in a high school that was locally famous for race riots in the recent past. Thank god for Mr. C ensuring that we observe the finer points of social grace.
I’ve been to maybe a dozen graduations for other schools and all of those were in alphabetical order. The program for my high school was printed in alphabetical order, yet the order we went across the stage was by height, which made it impossible for parents or guests to follow along.
This reminds me of our elementary school. Before school, everyone would gather to play in the playground; then, when the bell rang, we’d line up two-by-two to go in our assigned doors. The first two kids in line would hold the doors for the rest, and the second two stood just inside to remove the hats from any kids who still had them on at that point. You see, you were expected to remove your hat (we were in Canada; winter toques and other warm hats were needed) as soon as you stepped inside the school. You would not put it on again until you left school.
To this day, when I step inside pretty much anywhere, I automatically remove my hat. I’ve learned that I can keep it on in a mall, but for some reason, remove it in hotel lobbies. Go figure!
Athletic shoes were forbidden outside of gym class and all other forms of shoes/boots were banned in gym class. The purpose was to force us to change shoes rather than have stinky feet but many of us being farm kids, it didn’t work too well. Lots of my friends simply took gym in their socks since their families couldn’t afford two pairs of “school shoes” at the same time.
Out of that, in our community, developed the tradition among the “wealthier” kids of taking their gym shoes, tying the laces together, and tossing them over a power line on the last day of school. It was their way of showing off.
SHAG - we were allowed to hunt to and from school but our firearms and ammo were kept by the gym teacher during the day under lock and key with the other equipment. If you were a “nice kid” and shared what you got, you could often talk the lunch ladies into stashing your rabbits or such in the one freezer during the day; assuming you had it properly cleaned and tagged (not required by law for small game) to make it easier on them.
We had something like that in elementary school, except they’d do weekly parties where they’d show a movie or have some cupcakes on a Friday afternoon. If you had all your stars punched or lost your card, you couldn’t attend.
In high school (1957-1961) we couldn’t talk in the hallways during a change of class. This rule was very strictly enforced. We were in the same building as the Junior High classes and they were not to be disturbed.
Also, in the second and third grade (I had the same teacher for both), we were not allowed to speak during lunch. If this same teacher left the classroom, we were not allowed to speak and were encouraged to rat each other out. Yet I remember another time when she hung a sign around one child’s neck that said “Tattletale.” Lots of mixed messages.
I don’t remember anyone being late to class. You just didn’t do it.
In chemistry class we didn’t have lab the entire year.
At our school they made us buy an extra pair of sneakers to use during gym class. They wouldn’t let you go barefoot and they didn’t want you using your regular sneakers. Usually my parents would get me a cheap pair from Payless to use for gym.
Also my elementary school had a policy that during recess on snowy days you couldn’t leave the sidewalk or blacktop unless you had a pair of boots. The strange thing was, though, that it didn’t seem to matter whether they were snowboots or not. There was one day when I forgot to get my boots and just had my regular sneakers. But a friend of mine happened to be wearing cowboy boots that day and he was allowed to go play in the snow.
I attended High School in the early days of the home internet revolution (1990’s), and our school had somehow wheedled an internet connection (which was a BIG DEAL back then), and the Internet acceptable use policy was also a big deal, and agreement slips to the AUP were formalized. You had to go to a special session just to get usage permission, and during the session they showed sample disciplinary folders like you could end up with if you were not careful.
In terms of the usage policy itself, if I can recall, it stated, in two different places (not verbatim):
Students are not permitted to give out any identifying information about themselves. (the implication being that people up to no good can do nasty stuff to you if they can track you down)
Students must identify themselves whenever communicating online, so that people who interact with you know who to report if they catch you engaging in inappropriate behavior.
I also took at least one class (middle school?) that had notebook checks as part of your grade. You would be given a handout that looked at first like an ordinary test, but would as questions like “On the homework from September 2, what was the answer to problem #5?”, and “On the exam of September 10, what was question 3 asking about?”. This was supposed to drill it into your head that you THROW AWAY NOTHING from the class, every returned homework and every graded quiz had to be kept in an orderly manner so that you could fill out the notebook check.
We also had ceremonious no hat reminders. There were posters that said something to the effect that “This is a NO HAT zone”.
There were also skits that were supposed to remind you that you were bound to the school behavioral rules wherever you go, and that you could get a school disciplinary referral and even be suspended for foul behavior at the video arcade at the mall.
When I started high school, we were allowed to eat lunch outside at some picnic tables . After Columbine happened, the school made everyone eat in the cafeteria and they eventually removed the picnic tables as some sort of gesture to make it look like they were doing something. That seemed pointless and contrary to modern infantry tactics to me, to concentrate all the targets in a small area. Maybe if all the students made a bonzai charge at a shooter it could save lives, but if there was any such training I must have skipped school that day.
I spent the rest of high school figuring out ways to get out of the cafeteria. Eventually as a senior I realized I could walk right past the monitors as long as I did so with confidence and didn’t look back. I called it my Jedi Mind Trick. I don’t know if they didn’t notice me, or if they assumed I was a teacher’s aide.
You could leave school for lunch, if you were a Junior or Senior. Freshman and Sophomores be damned.
I didn’t eat lunch in school once, and I looked like a young freshman – the trick was to simply walk past the teachers.
We had two cops at our school, both were cool if they liked you. And they liked me, so I could raise hell and not get in trouble. Yet… other kids couldn’t walk by them without getting stopped and asked why they weren’t in class. (And I was certainly worse behaved than many of them.)
Our school had very strict usage policies. You couldn’t access any sites that were “fun,” or entertaining. You couldn’t access any forums, or anything unrelated to school (all through very thorough blocks). But, you could access a remote server and browse the web that way, which I did frequently.
Men were strictly and expressly forbidden to wear any outfit that did not have separate holes for each leg, this explicitly included (but was not limited to) skirts, dresses and… kilts.
Men were forbidden to wear rings of any sort, but that was dropped half way through my freshman year when it became too difficult to enforce. And, get this, women were forbidden from “being pregnant.” There was nothing about what would happen if you got pregnant, and in fact the two girls in my school (out of 1,000+ females) that got pregnant didn’t seem to suffer for it… but it was damn well against the rules.
We had a moment of silence every day. This was in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in the 1980s. The high school was probably 50% Jewish, so it certainly wasn’t a way to get around school prayer restrictions. Still, northern Florida was still Bible Belt at that time, I’m guessing school districts were strongly encouraged to have ‘prayer time.’
In elementary school we were all required to go outside for recess unless it was colder than fifteen degrees. To this day, that still boggles my mind. Who set it at fifteen degrees? And didn’t they think little bodies could be harmed by prolonged exposure to any temperature under freezing?
In middle school, hall monitors checked to make sure that all male and female students regularly kept at a literally arms length.
I went to two different high schools. At the first, they wouldn’t call your home if you missed a class. They would, however, charge you $5 for every absence after the first 3 in the semester. You couldn’t get your grades for the year (and seniors couldn’t graduate) unless they’ve paid off their “sluffing fees.” In the other high school, we weren’t charged for missing school, but they did require everybody’s parents to call and excuse them from the office.
I went to a Catholic grade-school and anytime the class as a whole had to go somewhere like to lunch or an assembly we had to be in one big line, no exceptions. The line was not just students at random it was structured smallest to tallest and boy-girl, boy-girl order. The order was because at that age the sexes did not speak to one another and the nuns believed this would cut down on the chatter. I can still remember the classes going from place to place weaving like giant snakes around the school all in perfect order.
My high school had a smoking area… for the students. It was an open campus in a small town and the school had about 200 kids for the 4 grades of high school. To reduce the risk to students caused by people piling into their cars to leave at lunch, they just created a smoking area out under the chesnut trees.
It was 1970-74 and most of the dress codes and other crap had already gone out the window. I have fond memories of bra-less halter tops and hot pants.
Society did not come to an end by expecting students to behave as adults. There were few problems and most everyone graduated.
Of course then we all grew up and had kids of our own and created the school system of helicopter parents and teacher/nannys that encourages children to be dependant until they are 30ish. But that is a different thread.
I was gonna mention the smoking area also. I graduated in '77. The central courtyard of the school was a designated smoking area. You weren’t supposed to smoke in the bathroom but a lot of girls did. They stationed some of the janitor ladies in there to prevent it, but all they did was bum cigarettes off of the school girls.
I attended public schools in the 1980s through 1995. In my school district, shorts were only allowed the first six weeks and last six weeks of the school year. Usually this wasn’t much of a problem, but every once in a while there’d be a very warm day in October and we couldn’t wear shorts. There was a big to-do about shorts, because shortly before I was old enough to be affected by the rule, shorts were not allowed at all in middle school or high school.
Also, like many other school districts in Illinois, we got a day off the first Monday each March. The occasion was Count Casimir Pulaski Day.
I attended Middle School (6, 7, & 8th grade) in central Wisconsin in the mid 70s. Every fall, a few weeks before deer hunting season, the Principal would give this message over the loudspeaker:
‘We are getting quite close to deer hunting. Every boy who is leaving directly from school to go hunting and wants to keep his rifle in his locker must have a signed permission slip with my secretary before the end of next week. No slip, no rifle. Also - no ammunition in the same locker as your rifle.’
Technically, no ammo was allowed in school, but everyone knew from experience that if you left it up to your dad or another member of your hunting party to remember your ammo, they wouldn’t, so the school looked the other way as long as you didn’t have rifle and ammo in the same locker. I didn’t hunt, but the boys with lockers on either side of me did, so I kept their ammo in my locker in exchange for snickers bars or something like that.
Also, we had open campus and when I was in 8th grade, in an attempt to keep us on campus during lunch hour, the school launched the idea of offering us 8th graders our own smoking room. It never went through, but not because of the smoking thing. The school couldn’t get funding for a pop machine and really, what’s a smoking room without soda anyway…
I went away to high school. We lived in dorms. We weren’t allowed to dance (we had a sports banquet instead of prom, we weren’t allowed to wear blue-jeans to class, You couldn’t hold hands with a girl until you were a Junior (11th grade), we had mandatory chapel every day, hazing of Freshman by Juniors and Seniors was accepted (though violent hazing was frowned on), and a bunch of other crap I can’t remember.
About when I was in the third grade, they introduced a policy that each class had to play an assigned game at lunch and recess, rather than allowing us kids to simply join up with whatever game we wanted to play. I suspect that some safety or crowding issue might have been the real reason; it was a small school that normally had only about 300 students, but maybe from that point the student population grew a bit. But the funny part was that the official justification for not being allowed to pick our own games was that we kids were littering. I can’t remember this being particularly obvious; this was back when anti-littering PSAs were familiar sights on TV, and most people seemed to be reasonably conscientious in picking up after themselves.
For years a local weather reporter has done elementary school visits, and it now seems to be policy that these schools all have mascots or “team” names. It seems rather pointless since they don’t have actual interscholastic teams as far as I know. My old grade school’s team name is The Wizards.
Long, long after my time, both my middle and grade schools have forced the kids into uniforms.
The only odd thing I can think of off the top of my head was the school’s policy to delete any files that ended in *.exe.
Let me preface this by saying each student had a login/password onto the network, you could save files to the f:\ drive and they would appear as local no matter where you logged on from.
I got called into the VP’s office one day and he showed me a list of files that he found on my network drive and said “Now, I understand from [comp sci teacher] that files that end in exe are games so we have deleted them” Well, I think some of them were games but luckily I was in a class that was learning the Assembly language which means before testing a program I’d written it would have to be compiled in to an EXEcutable file. Like I said, I’m sure some of them were games, but I threw a fit telling the VP this and then telling him that he deleted all my homework (considering that he decided that *.exe automatically meant game, I was confidant he would know that I could just recompile them). I think they changed their policy after that.
In the VP’s defense, I’d be willing to bet that 99% of exe files on the network were probably games. I would say that they should have run the file first to see what it was, but most of the comp sci programs that we wrote (especially when we started dabbling with graphics) would have looked like games also. We just learned to back things up on to floppies so it wouldn’t be a problem.
Oh, and this wasn’t me, but back when my dad was in grade school they had a policy that EVERY STUDENT MUST TAKE THE BUS TO AND FROM SCHOOL. There was one kid, that lived next door to the school and was picked up first and dropped off last. So even though school was from 8 to 3 he had to get picked up at 6:30 and dropped off at 4:30, sucks for him.