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Thousands of schools across the country will begin classes this year at home.
Some institutions – like the elementary school my kids attend – will have a hybrid schedule with days in and out of the classroom while others will begin with all day, everyday distance learning.
A central Illinois school district is doing the mix of in-class and at-home study but enforcing school rules while the kids are at home and implementing a “pajama ban” for students during remote learning.
The district’s school handbook already states, “Hats, caps, bandanas, hoods of any type, sweatbands, sunglasses, pajama pants, slippers, or shoes with wheels attached to the bottom shall not be worn” and school officials are enforcing these rules while students are sitting in their living or dining room.
The school is taking the enforcement a step further by banning students from taking classes in bed. Kids must also have their computer cameras on and trained at themselves.
“In our regular student dress code, it actually states that pajama pants and so forth are not acceptable school apparel,” Jason Wind, the district’s director of school support, told school board members this week. He went on to say, “And so this remote learning information that we put in, with the students’ rights and responsibilities that will fall back under that dress code.”
Goddamn, I hope every school enforces these rules. As a parent, homeschooling would be so much easier to execute if kids think there will be penalties for not following the rules. Especially, when the kids go back to school and must face those penalties.
I realize some parents will bitch, complaining that getting the kids dressed in the morning is just one more task they don’t have time to do , but in this situation, the school gets to play bad cop.
“I’d let you stay in sweats but the school won’t allow it.”
Some school district parents were “reportedly puzzled” by the at-home dress code. One parent said the last thing kids needed was “another barrier to learning.”
To put more barriers in place, ‘You have to sit at a table, you have to dress a certain way,’ does not make sense,” said the parent.
Putting on a pair of pants and sitting at the kitchen table is suddenly a “barrier for learning” for kids?
“Mom! I wanted to do well on my history test but I had these pants on!!!”
[via NBC News]
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