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About 75 students at Friendly High School in Prince George’s County who supported Breast Cancer Awareness Month by wearing pink shirts were given in-school suspensions Friday for violating the school’s uniform policy.
Students said they were sent to a classroom and told that they would receive an unexcused absence and zeros for their classes. But Max Pugh, a spokesman for the school system, said the students would be excused for missing class and would be able to make up any missed work.
Nice of those kids to show support, but misguided. Also, why in the world was it a "security concern" for kids to wear pink?
My guess is they have a very strict dress code. Prince George County has serious gang issues and most of the schools there do too. They weren't in trouble for wearing breast cancer awareness clothes but for breaking dress code rules, and doing so after they were specifically told not to. You can not allow students in a high school to deliberately defy authority with inpunity, especially at a school that already has extreme discipline problems. Last year four Prince George County students were murdered, countless others were victims of other gang and non-gang related violence. In situations like that you can not allow for deviance from the rules. Breast cancer awareness is important and it seems harmless to let them wear pink but I can see where the school authorities would be concerned about starting a slippery slope with wearing the shirts.
In most schools students with in-school suspension are not only allowed to make up work, but are pretty much forced to do it.
All but one Prince George's County high schools require uniforms, Friendly High School is one that does. The students were, apparently, in violation of that uniform policy.
The school official who stated that the ISS placement was an unexcused absence was contradicting MD state law which specifies that any suspension is excused and students are permitted to make up work. He needs to pay better attention at Principal meetings. Most likely, though, he'll be promoted.
Friendly itself, as PG schools go, isn't particularly bad, it's located in a fairly high income area although many of those parents send their kids to private school.
The gang problems at County schools are primarily concentrated within the inside the Beltway schools and the northern tier of the County. Friendly does have some indicators of gang infiltration, a former student was killed this past summer in what was described as a gang related shooting although he had spent only a year at the school prior to leaving.
1. For those who are criticizing the schools over this, do you take the position that all school uniform requirements are inherently illegitimate?
2. Maybe someone could explain to me how wearing pink helps people with breast cancer. As a casual observer, I wouldn't have thought any special effort was needed to get Americans to think about breasts.
The students could just as easily wore a pink band around their arms, or a ribbon on their jackets. There was no need for them to alter their uniform like they did...they could have supported their cause without creating a stir in the school...seems they've made the issue more about them than about the awareness of breast cancer.
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