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The next issue of The Crusader (my high-school paper) is already on the way. I told my lovely teacher, Mrs. Brown that I would survey people in other schools or people that went to other schools than Crestwood and compare their wacked-out rules to ours. So, if you could please share with me one or more rules that you had to deal with in high school that were pointless or a just plain ignorant way to rule over the student body... Thank You! (Be sure to include the name of your school and where you are from [ie. where the school is located])

-- Jen (Winter@nyc.com), October 12, 2000

Answers

A complete pointless, stupid rule we have is that we have to push in our chairs when we get up at lunch to buy our food. Which is completely stupid, because well, if you're coming right back to your seat, why do you need to push it in?

Oh yeah, my school is in Columbus, Ohio.

-- Madison (girl@columbus.rr.com), October 12, 2000.


my school doesn't allow pagers, phones, etc even if they're turned off. which is ridiculous considering if a parent calls, you aren't allowed to talk to them directly, you can only get a note. so if you have a family emergency or something, you're screwed and can't find out until the end of the day.

-- Katie (katielk@yahoo.com), October 12, 2000.

Here are some of our rules... No headbands (I have no idea why), no bandanas (they're afraid it might be gang colors), no shorts (they might *oh no* show too much leg, but they allow skirts!), can't step on this cardinal (school mascot) thats engraved on the tile (they say it's disrespect toward the school), if we wear shorts (like for gym) we cant step on the carpet (even if we just like step on it we get in trouble). Thats all I cant think of at the moment.

I go to WCHS in Missouri

-- Mallory (spanky343@hotmail.com), October 12, 2000.


Since I go to a private school, we wear uniforms, and we have to ask the teachers to take our sweaters off, or else we get a demerit. Also, we have to wear kneesocks, no regular socks, and our shirts have to be tucked in, and if we fail these rules we get a demerit.

MSMA, Plainfield, NJ

-- Erin G. (citrus@disinclined.net), October 12, 2000.


okay well first i went to a normal, public high school for a year (portage northern... kalamazoo, mi). and it sucked. i remember stupid rules about not being in the hallways or restrooms during class hours without a pass. they would have people *patrol* the off- limits areas. like fucken prison i tell ya. but it gets worse...

(first it gets better though, sort of) after pnhs i went to an alternative high school (portage alternative and continuing education) for two years. more than anything, the lack of rules at this school was astonishing. we had our own "smoking area", located outside, in a covered section of parking lot right off the main hallway. this has since been shut down, but when i was there ('95 - '97) it was facilitated by 98% of the student body, and about 15% of the faculty, when they thought none of the students were looking. this school basically did anything it took to get their kids to graduate. we would go to class drunk, stoned, tardy, miss half the semester, sleep through class... there was *never* homework, in any classes. the school had a free day care for the children of students. the variety of classes offered was astounding. they weren't typical, useless high school-type classes, they were classes with real life application (personal law, understanding movies, all sorts of internships and co-ops) like you would get in a college. however, taking into consideration the amount of actual work we did in aforementioned classes, i suppose the school had to make up for it with fancy-sounding course titles. anyway, about the rules we DID have, i can't remember many. i think most classes had a maximum number of absences allowed in a semester. some rather big number. but there was no penalty for tardies or absenses, other than the possibility of not receiving credit for the class. just about the only way to get kicked out of portage alternative was to carry a weapon or assault someone (which i witnessed on a few occasions).

(and now it gets worse, as far as rules go) from there i went to boarding school (the leelanau school... glen arbor, mi) for two years. yes, this makes five years of high school. shup you. and it was my choice. because, believe it or not, too few rules is NOT a good thing. so, moving right along... we had a "level system" at leelanau. there were 5 levels of classification, 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. your privelidges (sp?) varied depending on what level you were on. for example, we had a 2-hr, supervised, evening study hall 5 nights a week. the kids on level one, who had a gpa of 3.5+, didn't have to attend this study hall. the kids on levels 2 and 3 had to attend, but they could do so in their own dorm rooms, providing the doors were left open so the study hall monitor could check up on them. the kids on levels 4 and 5 had to do study hall in the dining hall. that sucked. no talking, no whispering, no *glancing* around the room. just sit down, shut up, and work. levels 1 - 4 all depend on grades, but if you do something stupid you get put on level five, which is for an unsatisfactory social report, and you have to do dish duty as well as have supervised study halls. level fivers also are not allowed to go off-campus or to on-campus social functions. worse yet, if you do something REALLY stupid, they dorm you. meaning you can't leave the dorm, most often over the weekend, when everyone else is out smoking pot in the woods :P and on the subject of pot, we all had random drug tests throughout the year. a failed drug test would result in level five, and a retest in five weeks. a failed retest would result in suspension or expulsion. as far as dress codes, we had to wear a collared shirt (no t-shirts or strappy thingies) and pants which were more or less in one piece (no strategically placed holes). and... i could go on and on. but believe it or not, leelanau is actually not considered to be very strict as far as boarding schools go. in the best interest of those attempting to read this entire entry, i'll cut it short here. feel free to email me if you have any further questions.

-- emily (evvy@chickmail.com), October 12, 2000.



One majorly stupid thing I hate about my school is, we're not allowed to go outside all day. They lock all the doors from the outside sometime during first period, so if you leave the school, you have to go in the main door by the office [which they leave unlocked] and then you get a detention. Another dumb rule is we're not supposed to take any food or drinks out of the cafeteria [of course everyone does anyway.. what else are backpacks for?], we no longer have open campus [which means for seniors, which I finally am this year, you get to wander around school or where ever during study halls], we can't put up any posters, etc on the walls, we have to use special corkboards; girls can't wear strappy shirts or anything that shows off their belly buttons, and no one can have or wear anything promoting sex, drugs, alcohol, or bad language. Mostly these rules aren't that bad, just the not being able to leave the building during the day and no more open campus is what bugs me. I go to Camden Hills Regional HS [public] in Maine.

-- noelle (daydreambeliever@stupid.com), October 12, 2000.

What a difference a generation makes. Being the resident old guy who requents this forum, I guess i have to say I'm sorry. I graduated in 1984 ("shup you"). There were no rules of any kind. Sure you had to show up and attend, but lates? no problem? Smoking? go outside the cafeteria under the awning, or anywhere outside really. Language? Just don't yell. Cheating was the only thing that got you detention. They did try to implement a dress code (no "rock and roll" t-shirts), but the studen body staged a walk-out. Nobody actually did, but the rule was never enforced. I even remember not attending a class for half the year as a senior. All I got was an incomplete, but still graduated.

You guys have it rough.

Portsmouth High School, Portsmouth NH. 1984

-- Tony (osmotw@hotmail.com), October 13, 2000.


A pointless rule? Aren't they all pointless? I think the most pointless of all would be the dress code at our school namely the thing where I have to shave everydamnday. It gets to be a hassle specially when you dont like that "cute lil baby face" of yours.

-- BIG HUNKA BUBBLED SNOT (sandblastedred@hotmail.com), October 13, 2000.

Our school isn't that bad, but among the rules are a few ridiculous ones. First of all, we have four minutes in between classes to get to our classroom. My school is very large, so going from one side of the building to another and having to visit your locker is always a stressful feat. If we're late to class, we get a Late. Two Lates equal one absence. Once sixteen absences, excused by a doctor or unexcused, have been reached then you have to go on trial in front of the Board of Education. Even worse: my school is comprised of two separate campuses. Once you become a junior, you go to the East Campus, forcing you to learn the hallways of a new school. Also, our hall passes are in the back of our Agenda Books, which are handed out at the beginning of the year. If you lose your Agenda Book, you're not allowed to go to the nurse or to the bathroom. To get a new Agenda Book, you must pay five dollars. Freshman are forces to take a Study Skills/Keyboarding class. We learned keyboarding in middle school! Study skills is bascially teaching you how to learn, study, listen, manage your time, etc. No one likes the class. Plus, if we didn't have the class, then we'd have an extra elective to use. They've decided to discontinue the class (THANK GOD). However, the Freshman of this year feel very cheated since our school has recognized how useless the class is, yet decided not to take immediate action in ending the class, depriving us of what next year's Freshman will have: an extra elective. Currently, we're allowed two electives: a language and a real elective. Since we need three years of a language to graduate, I don't consider foreign language to be an elective; it's mandatory.

To get on the latebus, you need a pass that's usually given out by the teachers. However, lazy teachers tell students to sign their name instead of the teacher signing it. Myriads of fights have sprouted because busdrivers don't realize this and think that the forgery was done with detrimental motives.

That's my school... heh...

-- Michelle - Old Bridge, NJ, USA (mmsundial@hotmail.com), October 13, 2000.


I've been to three high schools so far and I think the second one was the worse.

Our school uniform was horrible, not modern at all. The school had been opened for over 50 years and they hadn't changed the uniform at all (can you imagine how outdated they are?). Not only that but the girls didn't have a choice of wearing pants or the skirt, we only had the skirt. And we had to wear a long sleeved blouse and we weren't allowed to roll our sleeves up, no matter how hot it got (and we didn't have air conditioning). It was gross, during the summer, everyone was a walking sweat ball. The guys even had to ask permission from teachers to take off their blazers!

On picture day, you weren't allowed to wear colored jewelry. Like when girls have clips and stuff in their hair? Nope, not allowed. And not more than two earrings per ear.

None of the students were allowed to leave for lunch (not even the seniors), and we had to be in the cafeteria. There were two cafs, one for the seniors, one for the juniors so a senior couldn't sit with a friend that was a junior. If you wanted to leave the caf (to go to the washroom, buy something at the vending machine), you had to ask permission.

You weren't allowed to have a spare unless you were in grade 13 (which in Canada, after you graduate from grade 12, you can take pre- university classes which is grade 13) and you couldn't leave during spare, you had to go to the library.

No chewing gum, no going to your locker between classes, no going to the washroom during classes (not even when girls had their period).

A girl once shaved her head, she got kicked out of school. No pregnant girls allowed either.

There were even certain stairways that we couldn't use if we were going to a different floor for our next class.

I only went there because I didn't know how bad it would be (I had moved from another city). Needless to say, I'm at a different school now. There is much, much more but my intentions are not to write a whole novel. If you have questions but this dreadful school, email me.

-- velma-anne (velma_anne@hotmail.com), October 14, 2000.



Ok.. Stupid rules?? Think Pink Floyd, The Wall... Think it long and hard. Change nothing, keep that level of strictness you see in the movie. COMPLETELY. - That was Fayetteville-Manlius High School in the mid-eighties.(Fayetteville and Manlius are suburbs of Syracuse, NY...)

Now, take Emily's comments about Portage Alternative.. And LOOSEN the level of strictness that she's stating. I'm from the class of '89 from Portage Alternative.. Where she had to go across the hall from the lunchroom and OUTSIDE to smoke, we could freely smoke indoors in the lunchroom. And though she comments that there wasn't any homework, she probably just couldn't handle her buzz and wasn't fully aware that yes, there was. But the school also went well out of their way to tailor classes to meet the needs of kids with different levels of learning abilities. (Which is why I needed to go to an alternative high.) Standardized public classes of average diffoculty in a standard public school were too slow, advanced classes too fast. I could go at my own pace at Portage Alternative and I excelled. The fact that I could do so with a buzz on and without the pressures of conforming to the (Pink Floyd) "meatgrinder" philosophy being such an overbearing presence was pure ecstasy for me and several others I went to school with.

And just to prove that systems like Portage Alternative do in fact work, I had another Portage Alternative alumni as a coworker not too long ago.... We were providing computer support for a tier 1 pharmaceutical company. (Read that as one of the top 5 MAJOR worldwide drug companies... - A huge multi-national drug manufacturer/dealer if you will....)

-- Norm Allen (webmaster@fencerowsstudio.com), January 15, 2001.


I was kicked out of school cos of my hair. This was back in the late 80's early 90's so excuse the horrendous style, but i had an undercut (in uk this is where half your head is shaved and the top half is left) the bit of hair i had on top was braided with multi-coloured bits. At my school we were allowed to wear a maximum of 3 pieces of jewelry and they said that each of my braids counted as a piece of jewelry. They told me to cut them out. I told them this was total bullshit and they booted me. I still hold firm the belief that my teachers from school were a group of psycho's and it wasn't just my childs' eyes that thought this. Facists!!

-- Miss Tickle (miss.tickle@zoom.co.uk), January 21, 2003.

we dont have open school campass i dont think thats right we cant have cell phones or pagers . thats not right bye got to go

-- debbie dellene mcglothine (dmcglothine@yahoo.com), March 26, 2003.

we had to wear ties in our school, in the summer as well. And had to wear shorts during a "sports period" in winter as well (even if we weren't playing anything) كب آرہے هو موروں كے پر كا بہت انتظار ہے

-- Your Full Name (-- Jen (Winter@nyc.com)), August 18, 2003.

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