The kids school is getting even stupider.

[sophie]

My stepdaughters elementary school is reaching a whole new level of stupid.

-If a student has a fever of 99.0 fahrenheit after recess they must be sent home.
-If a student is sick for more than 5 days they may be suspended.
-The children have to report to a teacher if they hear another child cough.
-Our eldest was made to write an essay on her name because a teacher "didn't understand it", that means the teacher has never read fricking King Arthur!
-The nurses office has a medication refrigerator but no medications may be put in it, it's only for show.
-When a kids in the nurses office they must lay down, no sitting or standing.
-Wouldn't let me pick up a report card because I'm not their "real mother".I'm on the approved list to do so, you're just a mean old hag.
-No fruit allowed because of allergies. If your fruit allergies are that severe maybe public schools not for you.
-The healthy breakfast option is a "Nutridonut" WTF is that!?
-They heard I wasnt American born and decided to greet me in Spanish, and were shocked that an african woman doesnt speak Spanish!
-No hair braids. My stepdaughters loved it when I would braid their hair(my grandmother taught me) but it's a safety risk some how?
-Black tights are a gang sign. Gangs dont wear little girls black tights!
-No capris, shorts are ok as are long pants but no capris ever!
-Teachers argue with me about what country I'm from.And say I cant be because I didnt live in a mud hut.

[anakhouri]

Good God, where on Earth do you live? This is in America, yes? Disgraceful!

And a mud hut? That's just straight-up offensive. Can you make a complaint to the school board or are they just as moronic?

Now I'm curious though. Guenivere? Morgan? Lyonesse? Elaine? I know you probably don't want to put it on the Internet though.

[sophie]

This is America, and the school board is known for being stupid.

I'll give you a clue the name ends with an a.

[Ginger Tea]

All of my "What!?!"'s

[HotelKatz]

Argh, my head. The stupidity of the schools is giving me a headache.

What next? Cursive writing is removed from being taught because it becomes too hard for Teachers to read or write in?

[NecCat]

No - cursive writing is if fact no longer being taught here (Ontario), because students supposedly won't need to know it, everything they need will be in type or printed. If people no longer handwrite anything longer than a quick note, and type everything else, no one will write, only print. My son's elementary school doesn't teach it, and my friend who teaches university is starting to get students who can't read it. So it must not have been being taught for at least 12-15 years.

[sophie]

They do teach some kind of half-assed cursive here they call it curvy writing.

[Rageaholic]

No - cursive writing is if fact no longer being taught here (Ontario), because students supposedly won't need to know it, everything they need will be in type or printed. If people no longer handwrite anything longer than a quick note, and type everything else, no one will write, only print. My son's elementary school doesn't teach it, and my friend who teaches university is starting to get students who can't read it. So it must not have been being taught for at least 12-15 years.

I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't know why curriculums even bother with cursive. I spent much of my elementary school days learning how to write the normal way and then in third grade they started teaching us cursive. By forth grade, teachers were encouraging students to write in cursive saying that by middle school, that's how we'd be expected to write.

First of all, why does it matter how someone writes? As long as it's literate and can be read, there should be no problem. But more importantly, why do schools bother teaching writing the normal way if they're going to make you switch to cursive by middle school? It makes no sense.

As for the OP's list of stupid school rules, one that jumped out at me was:

-If a student has a fever of 99.0 fahrenheit after recess they must be sent home.
-If a student is sick for more than 5 days they may be suspended.

So not only do they have such a strict definition of what constitutes 'sick', but when said student gets sick for 5 days, they get punished. What kind of school even punishes students for being sick? That's the stupidest thing ever (and considering the other stuff on the list, that's saying a lot.)

[sophie]

So not only do they have such a strict definition of what constitutes 'sick', but when said student gets sick for 5 days, they get punished. What kind of school even punishes students for being sick? That's the stupidest thing ever (and considering the other stuff on the list, that's saying a lot.)

Last year they even expelled students for having the flu. They said the parents should have made them better faster. Sure let me just pull out my magic wand!

[HYHYBT]

The thing with cursive is there are no benefits, other than being able to read things written in it more easily, to using that style of handwriting. It's not faster (except, of course, in the useless sense that people write fastest in whichever system they're used to) and it's *always* less legible than the style of handwriting some call printing. Meanwhile, going through the process of learning to write *twice* takes a lot longer than only learning once and therefore necessarily replaces or postpones learning something else. It would be better not to teach it even if there were no such things as computers.

[sophie]

I wouldn't care if they didn't teach it, but they should do one or the other not half way.

[Bloodsoul]

I'm reminded of Rosa from Pokémon: Black/White Version 2. A gang member if I ever saw one. She even hung out with (redeemed) criminals!

No - cursive writing is if fact no longer being taught here (Ontario), because students supposedly won't need to know it, everything they need will be in type or printed. If people no longer handwrite anything longer than a quick note, and type everything else, no one will write, only print. My son's elementary school doesn't teach it, and my friend who teaches university is starting to get students who can't read it. So it must not have been being taught for at least 12-15 years.

In a way I can see a reason behind this, perhaps some seeing it as an outdated concept. I was just thinking about when was the last time anyone had to carve/chisel out letters in a clay tablet. Well, maybe not the same thing…

Last year they even expelled students for having the flu. They said the parents should have made them better faster. Sure let me just pull out my magic wand!

I actually had my D&D 3.5 sorceress train in the skill, "Use Magic Device," so she could heal herself with a wand of cure wounds (a spell not normally usable by sorcerers).

[TheHuckster]

In a way I can see a reason behind this, perhaps some seeing it as an outdated concept. I was just thinking about when was the last time anyone had to carve/chisel out letters in a clay tablet. Well, maybe not the same thing…

Cursive was rather used for quills, since repeated lifting from the paper could cause drops and smudges, and cursive reduces the amount of times you lift from the paper.

You would be in a world of pain if you had to carve or chisel out cursive on a clay tablet. Print is much easier for that kind of thing.

[KabeRinnaul]

I actually had my D&D 3.5 sorceress train in the skill, "Use Magic Device," so she could heal herself with a wand of cure wounds (a spell not normally usable by sorcerers).

UMD is one of the most useful skills in 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder for that exact reason. Being able to use scrolls and other wands is a minor benefit on top of "Standard Action to heal 1d8+1 as needed".

[fireheart17]

I'm not trying to justify this entirely, but I can see where a couple of these ideas may be coming from.

-If a student has a fever of 99.0 fahrenheit after recess they must be sent home.

Do they account for hot weather, or do they expect every student to come to school in bikinis and budgie smugglers?

-If a student is sick for more than 5 days they may be suspended.

I'm wondering if this one is in part due to parents pulling their kid out for a non-illness related reason and then it turns out that no, little Jimmy isn't sick, he's been visiting Japan with his parents. Does this one include having a sick certificate from the doctor?

-The children have to report to a teacher if they hear another child cough.

This is stupid and to me, just encourages tattling.

-Our eldest was made to write an essay on her name because a teacher "didn't understand it", that means the teacher has never read fricking King Arthur!

I'm guessing that the teacher manages to understand names like "Saaphryi" and "Bacardi" perfectly?

-The nurses office has a medication refrigerator but no medications may be put in it, it's only for show.
-When a kids in the nurses office they must lay down, no sitting or standing.

The medication refrigerator being for show I'm guessing is to placate potential new enrolments? (it's also stupid if it's not actually being used)

The latter I'm guessing is because they don't want students in there using it as an excuse to skip class, so if they're there, they must be sick?

-Wouldn't let me pick up a report card because I'm not their "real mother".I'm on the approved list to do so, you're just a mean old hag.

Is there a reason why the school does not distribute these to the students themselves?

-No fruit allowed because of allergies. If your fruit allergies are that severe maybe public schools not for you.

OK, I'm sorry, but that's just plain stupid. Hell, I have a couple of children at the school I work at who have fruit allergies (my manager is also allergic to strawberries and pineapples). All we do is just monitor carefully and try not to use the items if at all possible (we don't eliminate completely-basically if it's at the "contains this product" line it's a no-go, if it's at the "traces" level, it's generally OK. The only exceptions are milk and bread: we have normal and allergic alternatives)

-The healthy breakfast option is a "Nutridonut" WTF is that!?

A bit of googling gave me this: http://www.superbakery.com/foodservi...2841&int=15042

Basically it's a donut made with ingredients that have vitamins and minerals added. Basically it's still a donut, but it means that the kids are now supposedly eating "good" food disguised as junk food! (Yeah, it's stupid. Hell, we offer toast or cereal at work with the occasional alternative thrown in. The kids will happily down it)

-They heard I wasnt American born and decided to greet me in Spanish, and were shocked that an african woman doesnt speak Spanish!

And here I was thinking that America was meant to be a melting pot....(The only theory I have on this one is that they assume that because French is spoken in a number of African countries that Spanish works the same way.)

-No hair braids. My stepdaughters loved it when I would braid their hair(my grandmother taught me) but it's a safety risk some how?

No OHS risks I can think of. If anything, it'd actually be a BENEFIT to them since their hair isn't likely to catch on things. (and if it does, it can be easily freed)
Only risks I can think of are all racist or sexist in some way.

-Black tights are a gang sign. Gangs dont wear little girls black tights!

No, it's the assumption that the girls are being raised to be in a gang? Yeah, I got nothing on this one. It's just plain stupid. (a number of schools over here are banning the tights if they're footless or short, but full-length footed ones are OK for school. This is more for aesethic purposes than anything else)

-No capris, shorts are ok as are long pants but no capris ever!

Dare I ask where they consider the point at which "shorts" stop and capris start? For instance, this and this
could fall into "capri" territory EASILY.

-Teachers argue with me about what country I'm from.And say I cant be because I didnt live in a mud hut.

I....got nothing. All it does is remind me of that Arthur episode where DW means The Brain's cousin from Senegal and she gives him a picture depicting him riding a hippo to the mud-hut that looks like a school. (I believe that's what she's drawn)

You have my sympathies.