A Dress Code Even a Bowling Shirt Would Fail

If any of my kids ever got in trouble at school over policy that I disagreed with, I would hope I would stand up for them. My ex-wife once got into a heated argument with a school official for defending our son for pushing a kid in the snow - a kid who had been picking on our daughter, if I recall correctly. She showed more gall than I would have, but I doubt either of us would go anywhere near where the parent in this story did: http://www.kcra.com/news/29018987/detail.html

From the article, the parent, Pami Gibbs, was "accused of making references to ethnicity during the attack on Fillmore Elementary Principal Evangelina Ramos. Gibbs is white, and Ramos is a Latina.

"Assistant Superintendent Dan Wright said Gibbs became upset Monday morning when Ramos said the 29-year-old woman's son couldn't wear a T-shirt with skulls on it. According to witnesses, Gibbs suddenly began punching Ramos in the face."

Racial slurs, nope. Punches, nope. But is it a silly rule? You betcha (in my best Minnesota Nice), at least if it's one of those "zero tolerance" rules.

I haven't read Minnesota School District 196's bylaws yet, but when my son enters Kindergarten a week from today, I'm not sure I'll be dressing him up in the bowling shirt (yes, bowling shirt) I bought him in Reno this past May.

Here he is yesterday, proudly wearing it. Destined to become a hoodlum, no?













You know, now that I think of it, I wouldn't put it past either my ex- or current wife for doing what that one parent allegedly did, depending on the circumstances.

What Are They Teaching Them?

Tonight my wife and I took our five-year-old to his kindergarten school's open house. He was very excited to see what a "big kid" school looked like. Everything looked tiny to me (classrooms, gymnasium, cafeteria, etc.), but to a child of five, it must have looked larger than life.

There was a lot of artwork on display as we toured the hallways. We saw students' pictures of the Titanic, Japanese culture, and more. One of the first class projects we saw on display was skyscrapers. Accompanying the childrens' pictures were factual tidbits.

One student's drawing was of the Eiffel Tower. According to the student, the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889, is 1063 feet tall, and is the largest man-made structure in the world.

"Is?," I asked myself. Um, teacher?

Perhaps they just need to update the encyclopedias in the "big kid" library.