Cheerleaders at Somerset Middle School who wore curlers in their hair Friday were required to remove them because Principal Elizabeth Ponte said they were a “distraction to the educational process.”
I have to wonder about this. If you read the story, it comes off sounding like anything that the cheerleaders do that differentiates them from other students lands them in trouble with the “distraction” rule.
My main concern in school is whether the kids can concentrate and learn. And, having been in schools and having seen what the environment can be like, I understand well that students are inundated with distractions. And concentration on school work can be a problem.
But I can’t shake the feeling that this is a bit of an overreaction. And I want to know whether the same rule has been applied to other groups. Hypothetically, what if the football team were to shave their heads before a game in a show of solidarity? Would they be sent home because baldness is a distraction and you can’t glue your hair back on?
When I was in school, cheerleaders and the field hockey team wore their entire uniforms, as far as I can remember. I suppose times have changed in the 26-or-so intervening years.
What do you folks think? Overreaction? Or is this a case of “it’s already tough enough for them to focus to begin with?”
Posted by James at March 8, 2006 7:50 AMI feel like there's something we're missing, that the principal is intentionally witholding. Actually, I feel like she's discriminating against the cheerleaders. I'm just guessing, but they're probably girls who already command a lot of attention (many cheerleaders are attention hogs), and this just exacerbates it. I think it's ridiculous. I'm sure people notice the curlers for about thirty seconds at most, and then if they're inclined to pay attention in the first place, they'll go back to paying attention. It probably caused a stir first thing in the morning. I can't believe it was that exciting after homeroom.
I know that in some classes in the middle school, the teachers just aren't in control. Maybe the problem isn't the cheerleaders. Maybe it's a combination of hormones, videogame/tv-induced ADD, a million little gadgets in her purse, and a staff that hasn't yet learned to deal with this population. I don't think suppressing the cheerleaders is the answer.
Posted by: Maggie at March 8, 2006 8:37 AMHAIR CURLERS are a distraction? Are you kidding me?? Yeesh. I read the article, and it does seem that the principal just doesn't like cheerleaders. Look, lady, I'm sorry you didn't make the team when you were 14, but get over it already.
Posted by: Julie at March 8, 2006 9:31 AMGOOD LUCK TO THE STUDENTS OF THIS SCHOOL, WITH A PRINCIPLE THAT PICKS ON LITTLE THINGS SUCH AS THIS. SHE SHOULD BE CONCENTRATING ON MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES SUCH AS THE EDUCATION OF THESE CHILDREN !!!!
Isn't admonishing kids for participating in a school spirit exercise sending a mixed and bad message? Like, "Don't participate in your community and don't trust arbitrary autority." Enjoy your 0% voter turnout, Ms. Ponte.
Posted by: ThirdMate at March 8, 2006 10:58 AMI'm not going to defend the principal here, as I think the stance is silly, but most of the negative quotes came from cheerleaders and their advisor. Because of this, the story comes off as though she has a grudge against the cheerleaders. A more thorough article might have pointed out how often the policy is enforced and if there is a pattern of targets.
It's possible that the principal is just a rules lawyer and is trying to force everyone to adhere.
"Proper dress by students in school helps to create good attitudes, atmosphere and impression. School attire should be neat, clean and appropriate. If at any time a pupil’s dress or appearance does not reflect school expectations, then he or she will be requested to make any necessary changes."There's the dress policy. How do you delineate the line of 'neat, clean, and appropriate'. It seems like Pontes has decided that any non-standard accessorization is inappropriate. Not the message I would send, but if she is consistent about it, we have a different story than if she is after a single group. Posted by: briwei at March 8, 2006 12:33 PM
Wow, this is the first time I've heard of those type of vague regulations being used against anyone aside from metalheads/punks/goths.
I think the "distraction" argument is a figleaf for "I don't like what you're wearing and I'm an authority figure but the first amendment doesn't let me force you to go home and change so I need to come up with an excuse for misusing my power."
We used to get the same argument from our teachers regarding wearing shorts to school. So in June its "distracting" to wear shorts, but not distracting to be sweating your balls of all class and thinking about how you wish you were somewhere with AC.
Posted by: DG at March 8, 2006 12:54 PMMaybe she has a bizarre haircurler fetish.
Posted by: Julie at March 8, 2006 1:17 PMMaybe classrooms were full of giggling kids laughing and talking about the curlers instead of working. It only takes one kid to disrupt a class, and classes usually have more than one clown...
Posted by: Chuck S. at March 8, 2006 8:42 PMi am on the cheerleading team ;
our team is not filled with trouble makers
we are all honor roll students and our never in detention so dont think badly about us
I don't think badly of you. And I think you ought to have been allowed to wear the curlers.
Posted by: James at March 26, 2006 9:40 PMthanks for the support .. we are not the sterotype cheerleaders
Posted by: cheerleader at March 26, 2006 10:01 PMDear Cheerleader,
Since you were there, what can you tell us about the incident? Were kids very distracted by your curlers? Do you think you were unfairly singled out, or are the rules generally pretty strict? The only information we have is from that one article -- everything else is conjecture.
Posted by: Maggie at March 27, 2006 10:18 AMwell this is how it went down,
i got off of the bus at school with two of my friends. we were just about the first cheerleaders there. we were told to take out our curlers, or else we would be sent home and we would NOT be allowed to compete. my friend tried to explain that she wanted to call her mother, but ms. ponte refused. then the vice principal came over as well to tell us to remove our curlers.
we then began to take them out, in the cafeteria where we report to wait for classes to start. we were then told to go into the handicap bathroom as it was a distraction for us to be in the cafeteria. so we had about sixteen girls, in one bathroom, removing the rollers.
many of us were late for class. it caused more of a distraction, as the whole school heard about the incident. many students supported us as a team.
we have been called out for many things like shorts, shirts,etc.. even one day for school spirit we wore crazy outfits - skirts over jeans and layer tops with ties and high socks and were told to make them look normal.
many people were not distracted by the rollers until the insident with ms ponte
http://www.heraldnews.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16258955&BRD=1710&PAG=461&de
another article on the matter
Posted by: cheerleader at March 27, 2006 3:20 PMThat's the article that was linked to and quoted at the beginning of this thread. I was hoping there'd be a follow-up article by now.
It sounds to me as though there wasn't enough time for your classmates to be distracted. In my humble opinion, the principal shouldn't declare something a distraction until it has actually distracted someone. Classes hadn't even begun yet, correct? I can imagine some people doing double-takes at a mildly unusual sight, but I can't imagine it interfering with regular classroom business. Hair curlers are hardly outrageous and they are not too mesmerizing to ignore. (Neither are skirts worn over jeans.)
And then they had 16 girls crowding up the bathroom. Tell me how *that*'s not disruptive for some girl who needs to use the toilet!
If it's any consolation, after you graduate you can wear curlers pretty much any place you want, and no one will send you home for it, except maybe at work or at a snooty restaurant.
I can respect authority when there's some rationale behind the rules, but "no hair curlers" or "no skirts over jeans" seems arbitrary and needlessly restrictive for an environment that's already rigidly structured.
Posted by: Julie at March 27, 2006 4:21 PMIf this is the current mood in education, I wonder if my HS still has Winter Carnival.
Each winter, the four classes would compete in various things (best class song, class skit, class artwork, etc.), and this competition frequently called for dressing up, replete with makeup.
Yes, it was a distraction, but a happy one. I feel a little sad, now, to think that this kind of activity would be banned because it's a distraction.
I can see the point of the principal who feels decorum may be at stake, but for pity's sake--how about focusing instead on the kid wearing such baggy pants they're down to his knees, or the girl with the teeny weeny skirt who looks like a hooker instead of a student? Now those are distractions, not to mention displays in poor taste.
If the cheerleaders had blinking lights in their hairdoos, well, maybe that would be a distraction.
Personally, I wouldn't go out in public with my hair in curlers (that and my hair is already curly), but as long as it's not an everyday occurrence, I say lighten up.
Posted by: Patti M. at March 27, 2006 4:22 PMBy the way, things do change.
When I was a freshman in HS, a senior was told to take out her tiny, virtually unnoticeable diamond nose ring or be suspended.
Wow, have things changed since 1981.
Posted by: Patti M. at March 27, 2006 4:24 PMIt sounded to me like maybe there was a little bit of history here, and the preemptive actions of the principal were based on some previous experiences. Even so, I don't see the merit of having the girls remove the curlers. That seems to me to be more than a distraction, it seems like a disruption, with the commotion of taking out the curlers.
I'd be right on the side of the principal if we were talking about safety issue, or something indecent.
But it's only curlers for goodness sake.
Maybe if they were *throwing* the curlers... then you'd have a distraction. :-)
Posted by: Julie at March 27, 2006 5:14 PMif you have any questions on the situation .. you can leave them hear and i will try to answer
I think we all pretty much find this ridiculous.
When I was in graduate school, I went back to my high school to do some research. I needed to hand a questionnaire out to the students, have them fill it out, and go my merry way.
I was shocked by the environment. It was more like a prison than a school. I was shocked by the way the teacher (my former history teacher, and a guy I thought was pretty nice at the time) was speaking to the children. I hadn't noticed it when I was there, and I went from a very liberal private elementary school to that environment. But it didn't seem weird to me. It only seemed weird to me once I had the freedom (and responsibility) of college.
I think we've all forgotten, to an extent, what school is like. And when I look at the elementary school my girls go to, because I'm there quite often, it doesn't seem nearly as bad as the middle school. (Cheerleader, what elementary school did you go to? My girls go to North. Is middle school very different in terms of discipline?)
I think that once the kids start exhibiting some independence, the school system freaks out. In some cases, this is a correct reaction -- it's a school, there are certain things the kids can't do. But in other cases, I think it's absurd overreaction, possibly because they're in the mode of squashing individuality for fear of some kind of slippery slope of misbehavior. I don't know. But I'll bet we've all forgotten what it's like, and so it seems very out of proportion compared to our everyday lives.
Hey, Cheerleader, it's only three years, and it gives you something to talk about! Years later you'll look back and pity Ms. Ponte, most likely, for her pitiful inability to understand and govern effectively.
Posted by: Maggie at March 27, 2006 9:19 PMSome bits of HS were good (band, chorus, drama, English, French) while others were not so good (Algebra, Geometry, the stoners/burnouts, my hair, my friends being singled out and sometimes attacked (physically or verbally) for being gay or otherwise "different").
I wouldn't want to relive HS, and I doubt many of us would. As an adult, you get to choose, for the most part, with whom you spend your time. People who say these are the best years of your life are peddling crap.
Ask me if I've ever gone to a reunion...
Hang in there, cheerleader. Like Maggie said, three more years and you're done. If it gets bad, just say to yourself, "This too shall pass."
Posted by: Patti M. at March 28, 2006 9:08 AMI don't know if I made it clear before, but the story in this post takes place in a middle school, and not a high school.
Posted by: James at March 28, 2006 9:11 AMI didn't like middle school - we were always treated like crime suspects. If we hadn't committed a crime yet, we were surely planning one!
I know middle school students have a reputation for being the "worst," but pre-emptively treating people like they're the "worst" can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'm glad your middle school experience wasn't like that, Patti. It's good to know that for a handful of kids, at least, a three-year stretch that's difficult enough already isn't further complicated by adults with power issues.
Posted by: Julie at March 28, 2006 9:29 AMi actually went to North as well, and i enjoyed that school a lot. i have had a good middle school experience, the worst part of it is dealing with the schools dress codes. most of the teachers are nice, and i have not had any big problems outside of cheerleading
Posted by: cheerleader at March 28, 2006 3:40 PMI had a great high school experience. I would gladly repeat it. Middle school sucked from both sides of the desk. I substitute taught for 2 days one school break. Middle school shop class. They called me on Wed. and I told them I wasn't interested. I am proud to say no one had their hands chopped off by a band saw while I was minding them. Only because I was able to guard the power supply to the implements of destruction.
High school for me was great. Classes were a cake walk (except Spanish which I dumped ASAP) and Durfee seemed to be different from every other high school I've heard of in that people didn't pick on the band kids. There were a number of reasons for that.
-Back in the 70's and early 80's the school system was still doing free music lessons so the band drew kids from all backgrounds.
-The band was huge (freshman year we had ~100 people playing instruments and ~50 in the color guard, etc)
-The core of the band was talented and involved in other activities (sports, etc).
It also didn't hurt that we had 3-4 state champ wrestlers. We also tended to isolate ourselves from the rest of the school since the band room was way off in a wing by itself. So you didn't see kids walking around with instrumnts in the main part of the school.
It was the same at Taunton High. People still got picked on, but not specifically for being in band.
Posted by: Julie at March 28, 2006 4:31 PMI think high school's only miserable if you're popular, if you want to be popular, or if you, for some reason, are tormented by the popular kids. If you can make some decent friends outside of the popular crowd and who are not wannabes, then you'll be fine. Middle school is a bit more miserable because kids are generally more cruel to each other than earlier and later. It's just a symptom of the age group.
The only semi-bad experiences I had in high school were because I was on the cheerleading squad, which was made up of two factions: popular and non-popular. The popular girls were really obnoxious, and so occasionally there were clashes, most of which did not affect me so much as my friends. However, the middle school years were a misery because I decided to regularly clash with the popular kids (young Republicans, every one), and there are always teachers who side with popular kids to make their jobs easier (or to feel "cool," or to get something that they themselves didn't have in middle school -- the good will of the popular kids. Who are just using them, but they're still too stupid to know that). Wow, what sentence structure.
Teachers make such a difference, don't they? When I think back to those pitiful teachers who sucked up to the popular kids, I am inclined to engage in reverse peristalsis. :-P Then again, maybe I was just mad because I liked teachers who preferred smart kids. ;-) In all seriousness, fairness would have been really nice. Any kind of discrimination is inexcusable, but certain kinds are more socially acceptable than others, as James points out in another thread. And discrimination for or against the "popular" kids is a pretty socially acceptable form of discrimination.
Posted by: Maggie at March 28, 2006 4:37 PMthis is definately true
Posted by: cheerleader at March 29, 2006 9:27 PMok im a student here and this is how it went down they came in mrs im not trying to be an ogre told them to take them out tht caused a huge distraction and it hasn't been quite right since now if anybody sayz curlers everybody busts out laughin so maybe she got wut she deserved it was funny and it still is keep postin stuff and i'll try to respond cuz u guys need to hear the truth from somebody other than a cheerleader
Posted by: student at March 30, 2006 3:51 PMstudent :
who is this?
Hey! Cheerleader, if you're using the internet, you should know better than to ask somebody to post personal information on a public web log. Student, don't answer that. You guys could find each other in school, if you wanted to. There can't be *that* many cheerleaders.
Posted by: Maggie at March 31, 2006 2:32 PMIf I thought a middle-schooler was identifying him or herself on this weblog, I would delete the comment.
Maggie is right: don't give out personal information on the internet, kids! When in doubt, check with your parents or teachers.
Posted by: James at March 31, 2006 2:42 PMWhile you are both correct to say this, it proves that a) we are old and b) some of us are parents.
See, when you get old, you lear not to share certain things publicly. Now if only my friend with the LiveJournal knew better than to share his personal life online, we would all be the better for it.
Thanks, James and Maggie.
Posted by: Patti M. at March 31, 2006 4:34 PMsorry about that ..
i thought that it was my friend who knows who this is . i gave them the information for this website and i thought it was them posting. i was not planning for them to post on here, but to tell me in and instant message.
I think it's up to a child's parents to help them decide what is appropriate for them to share online. And until they have that discussion they need to err on the side of extreme caution.
Posted by: James at March 31, 2006 5:06 PMCheerleader: we just don't want to see anyone making a mistake. As Patti points out, our experience ( *cough* age *cough* ) has made us cautious.
Posted by: James at March 31, 2006 5:37 PMagain i am sorry
Posted by: cheerleader at April 2, 2006 2:40 PM