I saw this in my news feed today and you know I just had to say something. This girl wore a skirt to school, the school officials deemed it too short and made her change clothes. Wait, let me back up a second. They said they gave her three options.
1. Have someone bring her a change of clothes
2. Sit in in-school detention
3. Change into a shame suit
OK, that third one is just embellished a little on my part. She said they never gave her the other 2 options, only #3, which consisted of red sweatpants and a yellow shirt with DRESS CODE VIOLATOR in big, black letters. Mom says this violates the kid's FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) rights for making her baby's discipline public. I say "put on your big girl panties and suck it up." And here's why:
Last year, my daughter, who I'll call 17, wore black athletic running tights and a sweatshirt to school. One particular teacher who is NOTORIOUS for calling students out on their "inappropriate" clothing options decided my kid needed pants to learn.
She called me from school and told me I had to bring her a pair of jeans or she'd be in detention for the rest of the day. Did I b*tch and moan and naturally post it on Facebook? Yep. Did I call the principal, the school board, the media, the superintendent or the freaking Governor? No, I did not. Because I've got better things to do with my time than make a big freaking production out of something as small as a dress code violation.
The girl in this story broke out in hives upon putting on this outfit, and she was allowed to leave school early. I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling the sympathy here. YES, it was a pain in the ass to have to leave work, drive home, find a clean pair of pants in 17's room (come on, she's a teen, you know what a chore THAT is), drive to the school and give the offender her pants so she could go back and get more learning done. But I didn't feel that her FERPA rights were violated and I didn't feel the need to bring it to the attention of the national media.
I think this lady and her daughter are bringing more attention to this matter than is really necessary. Seriously. Instead of it just being the kids in school who are seeing the poor kid in her DRESS CODE VIOLATOR outfit, she took a selfie and now the entire country, even the whole WORLD is seeing it. And for what? For attention. Her FERPA rights are gone. Her mom made sure of that by contacting the media. So who wins here?