More News

Two perfect examples of Mr. White's general behavior and misuse of the school's time and money were made clear to me today, and, since I haven't been on the blog in a while, I thought I was due to post them. The two are quite different, as one is folly and pathetic, while the second struck me as far more serious.

At the beginning of first period, Mr. White came on to remind everyone that the rules regarding how we ought to dress are still being enforced. This is understandable; he is afraid that the warm weather will warrant cooler, more breathable clothing. In order for a student to wear this type of attire, some, if not all, of these myriad rules simply must be broken or stretched beyond reason. Mr. White went on to say, however, that he intended to repeat his announcement one hour later, reiterating his rather quotidian and elementary request. It's one thing to make a repetitive comment that annoys people, but it's quite another to waste people's time, who have to stop and listen to their principal tell them, essentially, nothing.

The second is an anecdote shared with me by a fellow student. I will respect the anonymity of all parties involved, out of courtesy and because their identities have no bearing on the meaning of the story... So a hall-monitor and a teacher get into a little quarrel about something or another. While this unpleasant exchange wasn't rooted in anything particularly awful, the effect was that of bitterness between the hall-monitor and teacher. Later, perhaps that day, but certainly within the week, a student of the teacher we are speaking of was sent out of the class -- with a perfectly legitimate and sponsored yellow hall permit. The hall-monitor, however, still fuming on account of her argument with the student's teacher, decides to "get even" with his/her enemy by sending the student, who was innocently traversing the halls, to the principal's office for violation of the dress code. The infraction, according to the person who told me the story, was that the student was wearing headgear, which consisted of a pair of sunglasses on her head (in order to avoid being punished for wearing them). This story absolutely baffled me, mainly because of the complete lack of fairness and professionalism of the hall-monitor. To punish a 3rd party as recompense for an alleged wrong received at the hands of another is one of the first misdeeds a young child learns not to do, let alone an adult. It is truly unfortunate that an employee of a public school is unable to keep in check emotions, especially when the victim in this circumstance is a youth. But the reason why such an event was allowed to happen was the unreasonably strict way in which the dress code rule pertaining to headgear is expected to be executed. The truth is, many entities are at fault and contributed in some way the sad synthesis of this unjust punishment. Hopefully the mismanagement of this school doesn't run this deep in every case.