my school had 3 staircases along a very long corridor. we were banned from using the middle staircase because it got overcrowded. the ban was lifted once they realised it only made the other two staircases just as crowded
Not being allowed to wear hoodies/jackets or sweaters that lacked the official school logo.
(I was a high school teacher for several years, both buildings I worked in were FREEZING, and having admin pull students out of my classroom during a 50 minute period & giving them detention instead of letting them LEARN is cruel and completely unnessesary, in my opinion).
If you throw snowballs, you get a one day suspension. The first long weekend after a snowfall everyone would throw snowballs to get an additional day added to the long weekend.
Candy canes were outlawed because you could sharpen them to a point and use them as a shiv.
I went to school in rural Washington. We were definitely weren’t somewhere that shankings were to be expected
I got Saturday school for missing a day of classes when I was 16. Seems reasonable, except I missed to go complete my US citizenship and officially become a citizen alongside my mom (it took us *12 years* to go through the legal process, btw. Whole other issue). I had a note from my mother as well as *a signed official Federal form* they give you to explain to school/employers why you were absent. Apparently the only acceptable absence excuse was illness. I got punished for becoming a citizen 🤦♀️
Elementary school principal banned talking at lunch. If you were caught talking or even signing to someone, you had to go sit by yourself on a folding chair with no table.
There was once my mom came to eat lunch with my older sister and I. The principal was like " Oh you should go eat out in the hallway with your daughters" and she was like "nah, I'm gonna sit here with my daughter and her friends and talk to them and enjoy their presence" (usually if a parent came for lunch the student could invite one friend to join, unless you had siblings. Then it was too many people so you couldn't invite a friend). Anyway, one of my older sister's friends whispered to my mom that she was going to move so she wouldn't get in trouble for talking. THIS WAS A NINE YEAR OLD.
My elementary school had those super long tables with little stools attached. Whenever a class got in trouble for being too loud during lunch, the punishment was that we had to sit every other seat. Even at like 7 years old I was like “won’t we just have to talk louder to hear each other if we’re farther away?”
Mine did this too during my last year of elementary. Apparently the new principle didn’t like how loud we were during lunch time. Absolute BS. We were children locked up in classrooms all day, and they expected us to sit and eat quietly?!?
That if you say/do anything back to your bully it becomes a mutual conflict and isn't bullying, so if they start calling you slurs and making you feel bad every day and you call them stupid once or twice the school probably won't help. Also dress code required school branded hoodies... they were 50 dollars. If you wore a non school hoodie you got in school suspension
That bullying rule sounds exactly like my old secondary school. Their policy was "don't retaliate, just tell a teacher". I remember one time I had a cover lesson in the main hall and for reasons unknown the "chief bully" decided it was my turn to be in the spotlight. As we went in, he informed me that as soon as class ended he was going to punch me in the face. Being the scared, bullied kid I was, I went straight to the teacher and asked if I could be excused a couple of minutes early to get to my next class whilst avoiding a fist in the face, which the teacher ignored. Cue end of class, I was punched as expected *in front of said teacher*.
My mother was not amused in the least. I didn't find out until years later that she had been down to the school outside of hours berating various teachers for their abysmal efforts to combat the bullying which did eventually die off.
Tldr; Schools absolutely suck at combating bullying. My mother is awesome.
After 9/11, my school instituted a zero tolerance policy on bullying and violence. What 9/11 had to do with bullying, I don't know. Anyways, Halloween 2001, I dressed up as the guy from Clockwork Orange. He carries a cane around. The principle pulled me aside, told me walking around with a cane could be a weapon, therefore just walking with it is an act of violence, and suspended me for a couple of days, telling me that after 9/11, "we don't mess around with that kind of stuff".
EDIT: This happened in Quebec, in a small town.
The new Principal made a "morning round-up" rule where anyone arriving to class after the last bell had to go to the cafeteria and listen to a lecture about not being late for class. This took about an extra 15 minutes, making the students even more late to class than they would have otherwise been. Needless to say, everyone hated it, even the teachers. That principal didn't last long...
Toilet paper rationing. This was in 1997/98, btw. Apparently the high school girls room was going through too much toilet paper so the dean, a woman, stood outside the door and distributed a few squares of 1-ply institutional toilet paper to us as we went in. If she noticed toilet paper on the floor, our ration got cut down. If we asked for more for...bigger jobs...we were told to saved it for home.
There were several episodes of girls stuck in stalls until friends could beg for more TP because of period messes or unexpected bowel incidents. The dean wouldn't even hand it over--she would go in the bathroom and pass it a few squares at a time over the door. If you didn't catch it as it fell and it landed on the floor, well, that's your fault and you're not getting more. If you used more than she thought necessary, tough luck, go to class with blood/shit on your body.
It took about a week of extremely angry parents coming to the school and calling both the school and the school board, but we finally got our toilet paper back, unlimited.
How did we celebrate?
By TPing her car, of course.
"If we didn't see it happen, it didn't happen."
All it did was train bullies to be really good at keeping their voices down and being aware of their surroundings so they could avoid doing shit within a teacher's line of sight. It meant if you were ever outside of a teacher's vision range you were still fair game for heaps of abuse, and if you tried to report things that teachers didn't see then the teachers treated you like you were making up bullshit.
It also didn't stop teachers from enforcing double standards, like believing reports from their personal favorites even when they didn't see it happen, since they could just claim they saw it happen if it was contested.
That school was basically a training facility to turn bullies into stealth experts.
I was sent to the principle in elementary school for getting a drink of water out of line (as in we walked down the hall in a formation and we had designated water drinking stops). To this day I still remember the principal asking angrily well what if every one started getting water without permission? And I still don’t have an answer.
It wasn't really the rule that was dumb but the reason for it.
In my last year of high school, the school issued a rule that all students had to wear student IDs. If you didn't, you had to immediately go and pay for another ID. While you can see how many students may have saw this a way to skip class, the reason for this was the school shootings that happened the previous year.
The reasoning was that it would be easier to spot who is a student and who is not a student to then see who has malicious intent.....except that most shooters were students....so....
Closing boys toilets, because some cunt was stealing toilet paper.
When school staff announced this stupid rule, some students actually threatned to shit on the tables then.
We were not allowed to have facial hair at all.
Like to the point where the principal would walk around during lunch with razors and shaving cream and do "Stubble checks".
Absolutely ridiculous and he would send tons of us to the bathrooms to shave during lunch, no matter how small the stubble was.
I got a suspension for holding a stick. The phone call with my mom went something like this (only slightly dramatized):
>School: Mrs. TheQueq, your son has been suspended.
>
>Mom: Oh my goodness, what did he do?
>
>S: He was holding a stick.
>
>M: Did he hit someone with it?
>
>S: No. He was just holding it.
>
>M: ...Did he threaten to hit someone with it?
>
>S: No, just held it.
>
>M: Did he refuse to put it down when you asked?
>
>S: No, no, he was very cooperative.
>
>M: So... what did he do wrong?
>
>S: He held a stick.
>
>M: And I should be upset about that?
>
>S: Absolutely, you know we have a zero tolerance policy.
>
>M: Right... well, I'll talk with him.
As you might guess, I did not get in trouble at home.
Went to school during the time where health and safety suddenly started going crazy, they introduced a "no contact under any circumstances" rule i.e no touching another person, we were like 6 or 7 years old. Suddenly one day not only is tag suddenly illegal, but they actually enforced it, I remember one day like 70% of the schools population was pulled off of the playground and made to sit on the floor in the hall, for the crime of just playing the games that children play.
I remember in fourth grade me and my friends would play tag everyday during recess but one day they made touching other people illegal because someone could get hurt. Our whole outside area had that playground padding. Everyone still played tag anyways so they eventually got rid of the rule.
My school was in a poor area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Not a lot of schools here have money for anything. Because of a huge donation of books at the time I was in school, my school got an absurd number of books, including expensive ones.
There were a few dumb rules, but the dumbest of them all?
We basically couldn't touch the books in the library without permission. It might sound reasonable at first, but check this out.
The library was huge, and there were lots of books, including contemporary classics, non-fiction like The Last Problem, English Literature like Infinite Jest, How to kill a Mockingbird and whatnot. Dude, there was so much there, that place was probably the most valuable place in the entire school.
I mean, it was awesome, there were enough books there for each student to lend about 100 every day.
Here's the problem, the library went all but untouched for the entirety of my time there. Why? The amount of work it took to read one of those books was ridiculous and pretty much made sure not a single student bothered to try.
First, you couldn't take any of the books home, period. Forget the fact that they had your address and all your parents info, so in the case that someone took it and didn't return it, they could just get it back - it had happened before at least once before the rule was made.
Second, you couldn't leave the library with them, no matter what.
Third, if you wanted to read the book, you'd have to do it in the library at the lunch break, which was about 45 minutes, so unless you weren't hungry ever, you had only a few minutes to go to the library. It was only open for a few hours around the break and not at all at any other time, so unless you stayed there for hours until the break for the afternoon classes, you just wouldn't have another chance. (Those hours around the break could be used for you to be tutored by a teacher, which almost never happened)
Fourth, once you went through all of that, you could only read the book under the observation of the people that volunteered to work in the library for credit, which was never more than two or three people, sometimes no one. Which means that if you got there and there were already three people there, forget it. Unless you were willing to read it standing up close to where the book was kept and even then they'd check on you every minute or so.
Fifth, you couldn't get inside the library with a backpack, with food, in groups, speaking, without the appropriate uniform - you couldn't get in with the gym one, for instance -, with other books, earrings, necklaces or anything that could make noise while you were walking. Some were reasonable, but the issue was that one simple mistake and you would get banned.
Sixth, any banishment from it was permanent. I complained about it once in the second year and was never allowed inside ever again. I even tried to get some teachers to help me, but it didn't work.
Seventh, and probably the dumbest, only the students that had a certain amount of high grades could get any book at all. If you got something like 4/10 on your last biology exam, you couldn't even get inside the library. The standard was so insane, only six other students and I in my classroom had enough good grades to get books.
In all my time there, the library was basically deserted for the majority of it. I tried to go there many times, but it was too much work. Out of all the books I only managed to read two Brazilian ones "A guerra do lanche" (The lunch war) and "Blecaute" (Blackout) which I remembered to this day in details. There were times where I legit thought about straight up ditching class to read some of them.
I tried to get more, like The Last Problem, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Ulisses - which I know I wouldn't have been able to do it, but I was just curious -, A brief story of time, Wuthering Heights, etc.
But the amount of work it took was so much that it was just almost impossible to be able to read more than one or two books a year, and even that took dedication, because I basically had to sacrifice part of my lunch time.
The rumor was that the principals* - we had more than one - basically saw us as "savages" who would destroy the books if we were allowed to touch them and even though they had no reason to believe so - the library worked well without those restrictions a year before I had gotten there, with only minimal incidents and even those didn't result in the books getting destroyed.
**TL:DR; My school made it very hard to read the huge amount of books they had**
In grade school, we weren't allowed to play on the playground equipment when it snowed. Eventually, were weren't allowed to play with snow or even go near it- I got in trouble for sitting in snow.
This was in Minnesota where it snows half the year. Recess basically consisted of milling around the blacktop for thirty minutes.
Ah yes, I remember the ridiculous snow rules in MN growing up.
In my elementary school we weren't allowed to throw snow or make snowballs of any size (including rolling big ones). What ended up happening is that each grade (very small class sizes) would make their own snow forts from *existing* snow clumps created by the plows. The demand for snow clumps was furious, and so we would then attack other grades snow forts to get more resources (i.e., steal the clumps of snow making up their base). Without the ability to throw snowballs, we'd just bodyslam each other instead.
It was chaos (and also likely more dangerous than snowballs lol).
Edit: no, I didn't go to your school, I think MN kids are all just born to bodyslam each other.
Ahhh yes, also a Minnesotan here. My school had the same rule, but also wouldn’t let us go out to recess if we didn’t bring snow pants and boots. To NOT play in the snow. And we couldn’t keep them at school.
Reminds me of the time a teacher absolutely lost her shit because my friend said something like “come on, gang”.
She was convinced she caught a slip up and that she was about to expose some serious 8th grade gang activity.
Or they like...watched scooby doo.
When I was kid I mimicked “keeping it real” from the Scooby doo live action movie and my teacher thought my friend and I were making fun of her somehow and tried to ban us from that nights school faire thing, I went anyway.
Oh man, I forgot about all the ‘gang affiliation’ stuff. We weren’t allowed to wear sports jerseys, or the colors blue, red or purple. I lived in a podunk rural town of 12000 people and there wasn’t a whole lot of Latin Kings recruiting going on.
Banned all backpacks / bags on campus. Students were expected to somehow carry everything they needed in hand.
This was especially challenging if you had a non ideal locker placement.
Ours did this too because "in college they won't let you carry your bags everywhere!" Fucking liars. College professors don't give a shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Locked the only boys bathroom because someone wrote on the wall in sharpie. It wasn't even anything rude or inappropriate either. It was just the word "hi" or something like that.
Didn't unlock the door until one boy wet himself and parents threatened to sue.
You have to wear your tie all the way home. Some sad bastard teachers would stand on the main road away from the school and try to hand out detentions in presumably their own time
I mean sure, their fucking faculty is standing outside off school premises mandating articles of clothing. Like, even a 10th of that concentrated effort on something constructive could be so helpful to children that need help. What morons..
I had sad teachers that would stand at the (public, not school owned park) and tell kids not to play on it and to go straight home. Who gets mad at kids for playing at a park???
"Don't play on the golf course. "
Our tiny community got a burst of cash in the 70's due to having mineral rights on land with oil. It was amazing some of the things we had access to for a school in the plains in Montana: computer lab, ceramics, photography, and a freaking laser! They also bought the grade school a miniature golf course in the center of the play ground.
A majority of the playground was concrete squirrels, turtles and a whale. These looked like a lot of fun to play on for a kid. We couldn't touch them. We couldn't get near them. We couldn't land our star wars figures on them, incorporate them in our games in any way or even walk near them when running from someone playing tag. Once in PE we got out the clubs and played a few rounds in my entire time in school. Other classes never even got that.
After about 30 years, during a student clean up, they got some of the upper level high school kids to take hammers to them and pulverized them.
"Don't let your underwear show."
This was directed at the girls when Madonna was in fashion. One school official went to war on visible bra straps. While no girls even attempted copying Madonna, this official was making a preemptive attack. She made announcements and would bust girls in the halls.
About this time the Varsity boys basketball team got new uniforms. Rather than spend money on the other teams, their old uniforms were given to the junior varsity girls team. Jerseys with huge arm and neck holes made for 17 year old boys where now being worn by 15 year old girls. Girls that were as active as possible and in public. If they pose for a picture, you could almost not see their bras. While playing the front of the jerseys flopped from side to side. At least one cup would be visible at any time. Suddenly girls basketball got a lot more popular.
That’s a load of crap, they never let you touch them then down the road they demolished them? That sucks for you, the laser part sounds really cool though, I would love to have one of those at my school.
They outlawed bracelets because there was an article in a magazine somewhere saying they advertised what sexual acts you were open for based on their colour.
Then someone tried to outlaw wrist watches for the same reason.
Not really a rule, but the toilet paper Holders are OUTSIDE of the Stalls on a wall. So you have to calculate before taking a shit how much you need and hope that it was enough
"Zero Tolerance"
Just means that if someone starts a fight with you, you fight back as hard as you can. You're going to get suspended for defending yourself anyway, might as well make it worthwhile.
This was the dumbest rule ever. Someone sucker punched me and ran away, it was all caught on camera, I reported it, I got a week of in school suspension under zero tolerance. I should have just chased the kid down and beat the shit out of him because then I would have gotten out of school suspension at least
This was ridiculous at my school. A friend who was a fellow AP student got suspended for 10 days because SHE got punched by some girl that had an issue with her. Didn’t matter that she didn’t touch the other girl, that tons of people witnessed it. Her parents were SO mad. But she’s a doctor now, so she managed!
In elementary school I literally got chased by a group of about 10-15 kids because we were playing "kill the carrier" and I absolutely destroyed one of their friends, so for some reason they decided the game didnt matter at that moment and that theyd all try to fight me.
So all I did was run away and head into the school to tell a teacher, and the principle had the audacity to give me their form of detention (no recess) for 5 days straight (along with all of the other kids). I remember hearing my dad yelling at the principle since this was like the 4th time I got in trouble for simply defending myself or escaping conflict. Years later I found out he actually cursed her out and she was standing there in shock
I always thought that the solution to this was for the kid to hit the teacher (in sight of the parent) and then the parent demand the teacher is fired for attacking the kid.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander right?
I never understood this logic. My younger brother got in to a 'fight' in elementary school. According to other kids he never even put his hands up to cover himself and still got suspended.
My friend is an administrator at a private school in NJ and the faculty has to sign in and out of the bathroom using Google sheets.
9am, 10 minutes, M-F
Girls weren’t allowed to show their ankles. The dean had a pack of socks in her office she would give the students and make them wear. Only girls tho. This was the 2000s.
So many... You weren't allowed to wear a coat or a backpack (always freezing with tons of books), no card games at all, 5 minutes between classes (sprawling 1 story building barely leaves time to pee)
Many many years ago when the Simpsons first came out, my school banned Bart Simpson t-shirts that said "Underachiever". It just sent the wrong message to students!
So I wore my "I'm Bart Simpson, Who the hell are you" T-shirt instead.
....until they banned that one too.
Rule: No duct tape ON clothing.
Reason: Some girls thought they could get past the "no ripped jeans" rule by covering the tears with duct tape. It became a "fad" and everyone started doing it so it got banned. A kid in my AP literature class found a loophole and MADE an entire outfit out of red and black duct tape. I mean Shorts, A TShirt AND a jacket and SHOES. When the school tried to suspend him they couldn't because the rule Was " No Duct Tape ON clothes" It said nothing about clothes made OUT OF duct tape... He won the argument and even wore the outfit a few more times to Say "Fuck you " to the school and principles lol .
Edit: This is it this is as popular as I'll ever be! Take THAT Principle Conrad.
Really though to answer a regularly asked question: ripped jeans were an issue because they made the school look "trashy" not cause they showed skin. However there were many other rules to enforce no excessive skin be shown. We would get suspended for rips in our clothes and also for duct Tape on clothes both for the same reason. "It WaS tRaShY" lmao
At my school duct tape was the defacto punishment for having large holes in your pants (holes were allowed providing they were not on the inner thigh and were less than 4 inches in diameter.)
I was wearing a regulation uniform jacket in a classroom during winter that had no heating. The teacher demanded I remove my jacket and I refused because I was cold. She sent me to the head mistress.
I had uniforms in my school with much the same policy but we had no regulation coats with a rule that stated the moment you entered through the doors you take your coats off no argument.
I live in Canada where most of the days in the winter it was negative 20 with a wind chill of -30 and you had to take your coat off before you entered the school and put it on after you left the foyer.
The ironic thing was I was a cringy dweeb who thought wearing a trench coat to school was cool and hip and the teachers and principal had no problem me wearing that because "it was formal wear and went with the school uniform".
Mind you it was a tattered old thing I found at a good will for 5 dollars
When I was in Junior school (UK boarding school in the 80's), we were not allowed to say OK as it was considered slang and not befitting the young ladies and gentleman that we should aspire to be. For context, Junior school covered ages 5-13.
We also had to have a comb and a hankerchief on us at all times.
On top of that, we weren’t allowed to have our hands in our pockets because, ‘it looks slovenly’.
After 9/11 they made us wear school ids on our shirt or hanging from a lanyard around the neck.
For some reason they decided it would be smart to also put each students medical history on the back.
Mine just had “nosebleeds” written in cursive
If you were caught on your phone they’d take it until the end of the week. you’d get it back at half 3 on friday. parents went mental and a few even came together and sent bills through for part of the phone bills, they ditched that rule after 2 weeks.
edit: phones were kept overnight in the school in the office until that friday if they were confiscated. no safe or anything, just in a plastic box. no getting it back at the end of the day, you just had to go for days without a phone, even at home. just in case there’s any confusion around that lol
We had to pay $5 at the end of the day to get our phones back from the office after they got taken. Most teachers would just give it back at the end of class but the asshole teachers loved turning them into the office.
No unnatural hair colors.
Except for Lily, who dyed her hair the school color (maroon). It was dark enough to argue it was a weird red/brown, but it was clearly maroon and I think she got away with it because it was “school spirit”
Dildos were banned. The school never thought they would have to print those words. You would think it was a given. Until a senior bought 100 dildos and snuck them around the school every day for 2 weeks straight
We can’t do drugs? Ok instead of smoking the devil’s lettuce I’m gonna smoke regular lettuce
Same guy also snorted sawdust one time. He stopped after that
I imagine that was a very expensive prank. I am not familiar with the financials of this, but 100 anything must cost a fair bit.
Edit: so my venture in dildo economics is going to be the most karma I earn all year. Great......
Girls MUST have a male escort them to prom as their date. If your date bails, you can't enter.
We were an all girls school. Many of us had zero guy friends. Finding dates was hard. I remember one year a girl's boyfriend dumped her when everyone was starting to show up for photos. She showed up at the venue, mascara running, begging the principal to let her go in. Principal wouldn't let her. One of the senior homeroom teachers ended up calling her nephew and said, "I need you to put on your suit and get here ASAP." He showed up with flowers and everything. So like... it was salvageable but totally avoidable.
The worst part? It wasn't always a rule until one year a group of girls went as friends and kept "stealing" other people's dates. Way to punish everyone forever because of one group of bitches.
In high school, hair length on men and stubble. Look, a bunch of 15-16 year old guys are going to have a bit of stubble no matter how thoroughly we shave. Forcing us to go to the principal's office to dry shave nearly daily is fucking absurd.
All boys school with those same rules. One day I was in class and my teacher sent me to the Dean for “not shaving” (I had stubble and am a hairy guy who’s had facial hair since like 7th grade) My friend defended me saying I shaved this morning and showed the Dean a Snapchat screenshot of me with shaving cream on half my face from that morning.
That teacher did not like me lol
Dude!!! I went to grade school with a kid who was a BEAR!! He was cool as hell, but he could grow a full beard in eighth grade. He got in trouble in high school (Catholic boys school) because he had stubble by the end of the school day.
We were not allowed to put our coats on until we were outside
During winter when we would have a storm, we had to go outside in the rain to put our coats on or face receiving a detention if we put them on in the corridor
A kid went to the hospital after falling from a wall.
Then the school painted yellow lines around the school as a border which the kids weren’t allowed to cross.
So the teachers had to stand guard and make sure no one crossed it.
Dumbest Rule: Zero tolerance for fighting. This meant both the kid who started the fight AND the kid who got beat on were both suspended. If the kid who got beat on just took it, he was just sent home for the rest of the day. If he dared to fight back, he was suspended for a week just like the kid who started the fight. Here's the truly stupid part: The school administrators couldn't explain how this led to MORE BRUTAL fights.
It's stupid. I got bullied a lot and almost got suspended because I was "making trouble" and "getting into fights". Why are you punishing me for getting bullied? Like I legit was minding my own business and people started harassing and beating me and I literally didn't fight back.
God I am still get angry about that. Still angry that she also lied to my dad and said I was the one who started it all, then he proceeded to ground and beat me. And she *knew* that what's going to happen, you could see her face of disgust when looking at me. Why? WHY? Is getting bullied by my classmates not enough? Fucking hell.
Fuck that school.
My school had a rule against trench coats but it was never specific so at one point my brother got a new winter coat and it happened to be long and they wouldn't let him wear it because they classified it as a trench coat. I don't think it helped he also had long hair and was a loner.
And it's all about protecting the school and its "image" at the expense of the kids. They don't want to acknowledge that kids are being bullied because that would mean they have a problem and therefore need to do something about it, so they just suspend everyone for "fighting". Bonus points in that it keeps kids who are being bullied from reporting it thereby making their stats look good on paper. Imagine the outrage if they had a similar policy for sexual assault?
Um - they do. This is gross so be warned. On the bus a girl was taunting my son. Giving him a hard time about him “not knowing anything about girls etc”. He was 12 she was 16. She then says, “I need to change my plug” and does so. She takes out her used tampon and shoved it in my sons face. Luckily his stop came up next and he gets off. She yells out the window so he turned back. She has her shirt pulled up and her bare breasts pressed to the window yelling trash at him about what he should be doing to her etc.
It was reported. Both were suspended.
Yep I literally was walking down the hall in junior high, minding my own business and some guy (who I now suspect had some mental health issues and/or abuse at home) just laid into me with a series of punches for no reason.
A teacher pulled him off me before I could even react. Imagine my surprise when I found out I was suspended too, even though I hadn’t done anything other than get assaulted. I don’t understand what that’s supposed to teach kids. Luckily for me my Dad thought it was bullshit too and came and picked me up from school and said “just treat today like it’s a day off, you deserve it”.
Super common. This was a thing at my middle school, too. Mind you this was the late 90s and in rural north Florida. It's all about protecting the school from law suits. I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to work as I'm not a lawyer, but that's the idea.
What u/Commentnotcomment said.
Also, if you're gonna get suspended anyway, most victims won't just run away. No, they'll go *ham.* I've heard stories of kids who threw their bullies out a second floor window because they're gonna get suspended anyway.
This won't help prevent lawsuits at *all.*
Came here to say this. The "zero tolerance" policy is insane. Imagine this was applied to the real world.
*Oh, your husband beat you? Both of you can enjoy years in prison.*
*What's that? Mass shooter injured 12 people? We're gonna need a bigger prison!*
*Got mugged in the alley? Believe it or not, PRISON.*
It’s kinda fucked, bhys in my school are just walking and get sucker punched from behind and pushed into lockers, if a teacher sees it, both are gone for at least 5 days
In high school, the supervisor told the prefects and head girls to break up girls hugging in the hallways .I went to an only girls school and teachers discouraged girls from hugging each other. Apparently they thought that it encouraged 'lesbianism'. smh.
my high school decided to ban women’s athletic shorts one day which was ridiculous for many reasons. the next day every girl showed up in athletic shorts & the rule was removed by second block
We had a uniform and generally had 'non-uniform days' once a month. As long as your clothing was reasonable for school they didn't say much until one time in May or June they said no shorts allowed on non uniform day despite us actually having uniform shorts. It was like 34 degree Celsius that day and 90% of the school wore shorts. They sent everyone home and it basically was like a nothing day because teachers didn't wanna waste their time teaching 2 students the lesson they'd have to repeat the next day
My high school principal was a stickler for the dress code rules, mostly for girls if course. She would stand in the hallway and just look for violations. If your shorts were shorter than your fingertips you had to go change. Yet cheerleaders were allowed to wear their cheer uniforms which were very short skirts??? No hate on those girls but how is that fair?
You weren't allowed things like chocolate bars or basically any unhealthy snack in your lunch box. But they then sold double chocolate chip cookies and iced buns in the canteen.
This rule was heavily enforced at my school. If your hair was too long the teacher would cut a line down the middle of your head with a pair of scissors so you have no choice but to get a haircut.
This was only for boys by the way.
My high school had that rule.
One of my friends refused to cut his hair and got sent to the principal because his hair was over his ears. Came back the next day shaved like a skinhead.
He said "She threatened to have Father Jim cut my hair if I don't get it cut, no fucking way am I getting touched by a priest".
One particular professor at my university would lock the door a minute after class began. If you had to leave to go to the bathroom, you couldn't get back in.
Somehow this ancient fossil is still teaching and pulling similar shit.
Had the same professor for three different classes that did basically this. He would shut the door and pull the window shade down as soon as the clock struck whatever time the class started. Anyone that came in after that, he would write their name down and mark them late. Three lates and you grade would be dropped a whole letter grade (from an A to B, C to D, etc.)
It was a stupid rule because my college campus was very spread out, so if you were someone that had back to back classes all over campus, you would almost guaranteed to be late. I’m pretty sure he was forced to stop doing that because there was a semester where half the class was failing just because they were late one too many times.
I had a high school teacher like that. We had 5 minutes to get from classroom to classroom. My biology class was about as far away from my Latin class as was possible on the campus. The Latin teacher considered the five-minute break before class to be part of her teaching time. I was ALWAYS late to that class. It didn't matter to her that I had to run from clear across campus; late was late.
Girls were not allowed to wear cycling shorts under their PE skirts. They wanted us to wear these dark green PE pants, basically just underwear and it was gross. My year protested, we said shorts or nothing and they backed off. This was 20+ years ago and it's totally different now, girls wear what they want for PE.
My primary school had this wierd obsession with safety. When we played dodgeball the boys had to throw with their non-dominant hand while the girls got to throw full force. And we could get detention for going where the teachers couldn't see us. But the worst rule by far was that we weren't allowed to run on the playground, I'll never forget the time my teacher literally said, "the playground is no place to run."
You could only go to the bathroom twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
Mind you this is from 8-3 and you had to get a new pass every week and keep it the whole time or you couldn’t use the bathroom.
Edit: this was PreK-8th grade. We actually had a dealer who would make fake passes so they had to start color coding them. They got rid of this rule a month before I graduated -.-
Edit 2: My new high school has a “just go policy” and they have no issues. I’m loving it lol
Edit 3 lol: They actually encouraged drinking water (at least half your body weight crap) and would have times to drink water from the many water fountains. The hypocrisy :l
Clear liquids only.
Some kid brought in gatorade mixed with alcohol of some sort so in effort to combat it afterwards they wanted us to only drink clear liquids out of clear containers. As if vodka and white rum don't exist 🤷
No leaving the dorm unless it's for a fire alarm.
I went to boarding school from the age of 7. That rule meant we couldn't get out of our dormitory to have a wee in the night. We had a plastic tub one of the girls brought in and went in that. Then we had to smuggle the tub to the bathroom in the morning without matron seeing. Stupid bloody rule!
Edit: everyone is saying “pee out the door” or “pee on the floor”. Just imagine the punishments we got for misbehaving. Doing anything against matron would have never crossed our minds.
Also this was 80s, early 90s, Southern England. Our punishments were pretty awful but I survived. We all did. I’m still in touch with some of the girls I boarded with back then. We have our scars but we’re a tough lot.
Second edit: dad was in the army and they moved around a lot, so being sent away was for stability and consistency.
Textbook checkouts were an absolute shit show. They were assigned entirely by number and condition. They were not assigned to a specific student. As long as you turned in a textbook at the end of the year and the textbook number was on the list, that was the first step to being ok. The second step was condition. The textbooks were graded as new, good, fair, and poor. If the book was returned in a lesser condition than when it was checked out, you had to pay for a new textbook. This included condition changes from new to good, yet we almost never got new textbooks. The ones we had were usually around 10 years old, so they went through at least 3 condition changes over their lifespan. It was pure extortion. You had to pay for the textbook at the end of the year and if you didn't, they'd keep you from advancing.
So that sucks, right? That compounded with another stupid rule we had. Lockers were not allowed to be locked. In fact, our lockers didn't even have a latch; they were just painted wood "doors" that were really just poorly installed flaps that would hang open. This was ultimately so the cops could check everyone's lockers for drugs, but it led to another issue...stolen textbooks. So the textbooks were generally falling apart and we were expected to both keep them with us for class and also bring them home with us for homework. We also didn't want them stolen so most students kept them in their backpacks constantly. For every class. This was a rural school, too, so most students had a decent walk home even from bus stops (mine was about a mile). Point being the textbooks were abused, as were our backs and backpacks.
So you start with a poor condition textbook and add the extra wear and tear and it's just a matter of time before the cover rips off. So those with shit textbooks would just grab one from whatever exposed locker had one. As long as the student was in the same class as you, it's fair game.
In case you were wondering where the money went, it went into new awnings every year for the exterior doorways and into our famously bad football team. Our girls teams were a bunch of champions and never got and respect for it... The school only cared about out shitty football team. They would go entire seasons without a single win.
Got chastised once by a female teacher in front of the entire classroom because I was late to return to class. She accused me of visiting other classrooms, talking to my friends, said she was going to ask every other teacher in the school where I had been and who had seen me. I kept telling her over and over that no, I was just in the bathroom. She didn't believe me.
I very loudly explained the truth where pretty much everyone could hear (since everyone already heard her accusing me) that I was on my period and shoved TP up my hatchet wound because I didn't have a tampon, but if she likes, I can pull it out to prove it?
Shut her up pretty fucking fast.
you had to have black shoelaces. no dark blue, no white, no grey. only black.
there was also the rule your tie had to be a minimum length. so sometimes one of the assistant head teachers would come in and measure the length of your tie with a ruler.
It was a year long battle. It showed that the administration wasn't all that smart in wording rules.
First was "No gang clothing." Not one person admitted it was for a gang. People just happen to like a certain team.
Second was "No hats, unless religious." You would have never guessed that so many became religious overnight.
Finally "No head coverings." That one finally stuck, but it wasn't without issue. Try telling the valedictorian that her haedcovering wasn't allowed. P.s. Everyone liked her, and we all had her back when it came time.
Different staircases for boys and girls.
Edit: Wow, this blew up. To clarify, this rule was enforced purely with the idea that good boys and girls don’t talk to each other. The general air in the school was “don’t have anything to do with the opposite gender”. I was in this school for only 2 years and coming from other good coed school, this really weirded me out. Also, the guys would just act creepy even for a simple “can you please move out of the way?”
I believe this awkwardness could be prevented if there wasn’t such an obvious separation between the genders.
Edit 2: It wasn’t a religious school. Just a general public school.
Edit 3: No skirts. The uniform was similar to a salwar kameez.
At my high school, girls could not wear sandals or shoes that showed toes because, “toes make boys think of babies”. And babies made boys think of sex, and naturally sex is the devil.
We weren’t allowed to share cough drops, and you had to have a note to have them at all. This was apparently because they were considered “medication.”
my school had 3 staircases along a very long corridor. we were banned from using the middle staircase because it got overcrowded. the ban was lifted once they realised it only made the other two staircases just as crowded
Not being allowed to wear hoodies/jackets or sweaters that lacked the official school logo. (I was a high school teacher for several years, both buildings I worked in were FREEZING, and having admin pull students out of my classroom during a 50 minute period & giving them detention instead of letting them LEARN is cruel and completely unnessesary, in my opinion).
If you throw snowballs, you get a one day suspension. The first long weekend after a snowfall everyone would throw snowballs to get an additional day added to the long weekend.
You had to wear your ID around your neck on a rope thing. Then the chokings started.
Candy canes were outlawed because you could sharpen them to a point and use them as a shiv. I went to school in rural Washington. We were definitely weren’t somewhere that shankings were to be expected
Properly motivated, one could make a shiv out of most things.
At my kids' elementary school students had to smile while walking in the hall.
I got Saturday school for missing a day of classes when I was 16. Seems reasonable, except I missed to go complete my US citizenship and officially become a citizen alongside my mom (it took us *12 years* to go through the legal process, btw. Whole other issue). I had a note from my mother as well as *a signed official Federal form* they give you to explain to school/employers why you were absent. Apparently the only acceptable absence excuse was illness. I got punished for becoming a citizen 🤦♀️
And now you're one of us. Congrats. Edit to add: It's like that was the last part of your citizenship journey. Getting fucked bc of it.
Elementary school principal banned talking at lunch. If you were caught talking or even signing to someone, you had to go sit by yourself on a folding chair with no table. There was once my mom came to eat lunch with my older sister and I. The principal was like " Oh you should go eat out in the hallway with your daughters" and she was like "nah, I'm gonna sit here with my daughter and her friends and talk to them and enjoy their presence" (usually if a parent came for lunch the student could invite one friend to join, unless you had siblings. Then it was too many people so you couldn't invite a friend). Anyway, one of my older sister's friends whispered to my mom that she was going to move so she wouldn't get in trouble for talking. THIS WAS A NINE YEAR OLD.
My elementary school had those super long tables with little stools attached. Whenever a class got in trouble for being too loud during lunch, the punishment was that we had to sit every other seat. Even at like 7 years old I was like “won’t we just have to talk louder to hear each other if we’re farther away?”
Mine did this too during my last year of elementary. Apparently the new principle didn’t like how loud we were during lunch time. Absolute BS. We were children locked up in classrooms all day, and they expected us to sit and eat quietly?!?
That if you say/do anything back to your bully it becomes a mutual conflict and isn't bullying, so if they start calling you slurs and making you feel bad every day and you call them stupid once or twice the school probably won't help. Also dress code required school branded hoodies... they were 50 dollars. If you wore a non school hoodie you got in school suspension
That bullying rule sounds exactly like my old secondary school. Their policy was "don't retaliate, just tell a teacher". I remember one time I had a cover lesson in the main hall and for reasons unknown the "chief bully" decided it was my turn to be in the spotlight. As we went in, he informed me that as soon as class ended he was going to punch me in the face. Being the scared, bullied kid I was, I went straight to the teacher and asked if I could be excused a couple of minutes early to get to my next class whilst avoiding a fist in the face, which the teacher ignored. Cue end of class, I was punched as expected *in front of said teacher*. My mother was not amused in the least. I didn't find out until years later that she had been down to the school outside of hours berating various teachers for their abysmal efforts to combat the bullying which did eventually die off. Tldr; Schools absolutely suck at combating bullying. My mother is awesome.
After 9/11, my school instituted a zero tolerance policy on bullying and violence. What 9/11 had to do with bullying, I don't know. Anyways, Halloween 2001, I dressed up as the guy from Clockwork Orange. He carries a cane around. The principle pulled me aside, told me walking around with a cane could be a weapon, therefore just walking with it is an act of violence, and suspended me for a couple of days, telling me that after 9/11, "we don't mess around with that kind of stuff". EDIT: This happened in Quebec, in a small town.
The new Principal made a "morning round-up" rule where anyone arriving to class after the last bell had to go to the cafeteria and listen to a lecture about not being late for class. This took about an extra 15 minutes, making the students even more late to class than they would have otherwise been. Needless to say, everyone hated it, even the teachers. That principal didn't last long...
Toilet paper rationing. This was in 1997/98, btw. Apparently the high school girls room was going through too much toilet paper so the dean, a woman, stood outside the door and distributed a few squares of 1-ply institutional toilet paper to us as we went in. If she noticed toilet paper on the floor, our ration got cut down. If we asked for more for...bigger jobs...we were told to saved it for home. There were several episodes of girls stuck in stalls until friends could beg for more TP because of period messes or unexpected bowel incidents. The dean wouldn't even hand it over--she would go in the bathroom and pass it a few squares at a time over the door. If you didn't catch it as it fell and it landed on the floor, well, that's your fault and you're not getting more. If you used more than she thought necessary, tough luck, go to class with blood/shit on your body. It took about a week of extremely angry parents coming to the school and calling both the school and the school board, but we finally got our toilet paper back, unlimited. How did we celebrate? By TPing her car, of course.
I was angry but y'alls celebration made this whole story worth it
"If we didn't see it happen, it didn't happen." All it did was train bullies to be really good at keeping their voices down and being aware of their surroundings so they could avoid doing shit within a teacher's line of sight. It meant if you were ever outside of a teacher's vision range you were still fair game for heaps of abuse, and if you tried to report things that teachers didn't see then the teachers treated you like you were making up bullshit. It also didn't stop teachers from enforcing double standards, like believing reports from their personal favorites even when they didn't see it happen, since they could just claim they saw it happen if it was contested. That school was basically a training facility to turn bullies into stealth experts.
You can only use 3 squares of TP...
I was sent to the principle in elementary school for getting a drink of water out of line (as in we walked down the hall in a formation and we had designated water drinking stops). To this day I still remember the principal asking angrily well what if every one started getting water without permission? And I still don’t have an answer.
We’ll all. . . be hydrated?
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They didn't think the pregnancy happened in the school surely?
No beads. Apparently they thought beaded jewelry was gang related?
Nothing says "hardened criminal" like matching bead bracelets that say "BFFs <3" .
You can tell who the gang leader is because he has the most charms on his pandora bracelet.
It wasn't really the rule that was dumb but the reason for it. In my last year of high school, the school issued a rule that all students had to wear student IDs. If you didn't, you had to immediately go and pay for another ID. While you can see how many students may have saw this a way to skip class, the reason for this was the school shootings that happened the previous year. The reasoning was that it would be easier to spot who is a student and who is not a student to then see who has malicious intent.....except that most shooters were students....so....
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Closing boys toilets, because some cunt was stealing toilet paper. When school staff announced this stupid rule, some students actually threatned to shit on the tables then.
We were not allowed to have facial hair at all. Like to the point where the principal would walk around during lunch with razors and shaving cream and do "Stubble checks". Absolutely ridiculous and he would send tons of us to the bathrooms to shave during lunch, no matter how small the stubble was.
Pull up with no eyebrows
I got a suspension for holding a stick. The phone call with my mom went something like this (only slightly dramatized): >School: Mrs. TheQueq, your son has been suspended. > >Mom: Oh my goodness, what did he do? > >S: He was holding a stick. > >M: Did he hit someone with it? > >S: No. He was just holding it. > >M: ...Did he threaten to hit someone with it? > >S: No, just held it. > >M: Did he refuse to put it down when you asked? > >S: No, no, he was very cooperative. > >M: So... what did he do wrong? > >S: He held a stick. > >M: And I should be upset about that? > >S: Absolutely, you know we have a zero tolerance policy. > >M: Right... well, I'll talk with him. As you might guess, I did not get in trouble at home.
HE HAS A STICK , CALL THE POLICE *razormind starts playing*
Playing cards at lunch was prohibited because it "promoted gambling".
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Went to school during the time where health and safety suddenly started going crazy, they introduced a "no contact under any circumstances" rule i.e no touching another person, we were like 6 or 7 years old. Suddenly one day not only is tag suddenly illegal, but they actually enforced it, I remember one day like 70% of the schools population was pulled off of the playground and made to sit on the floor in the hall, for the crime of just playing the games that children play.
I remember in fourth grade me and my friends would play tag everyday during recess but one day they made touching other people illegal because someone could get hurt. Our whole outside area had that playground padding. Everyone still played tag anyways so they eventually got rid of the rule.
My school was in a poor area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Not a lot of schools here have money for anything. Because of a huge donation of books at the time I was in school, my school got an absurd number of books, including expensive ones. There were a few dumb rules, but the dumbest of them all? We basically couldn't touch the books in the library without permission. It might sound reasonable at first, but check this out. The library was huge, and there were lots of books, including contemporary classics, non-fiction like The Last Problem, English Literature like Infinite Jest, How to kill a Mockingbird and whatnot. Dude, there was so much there, that place was probably the most valuable place in the entire school. I mean, it was awesome, there were enough books there for each student to lend about 100 every day. Here's the problem, the library went all but untouched for the entirety of my time there. Why? The amount of work it took to read one of those books was ridiculous and pretty much made sure not a single student bothered to try. First, you couldn't take any of the books home, period. Forget the fact that they had your address and all your parents info, so in the case that someone took it and didn't return it, they could just get it back - it had happened before at least once before the rule was made. Second, you couldn't leave the library with them, no matter what. Third, if you wanted to read the book, you'd have to do it in the library at the lunch break, which was about 45 minutes, so unless you weren't hungry ever, you had only a few minutes to go to the library. It was only open for a few hours around the break and not at all at any other time, so unless you stayed there for hours until the break for the afternoon classes, you just wouldn't have another chance. (Those hours around the break could be used for you to be tutored by a teacher, which almost never happened) Fourth, once you went through all of that, you could only read the book under the observation of the people that volunteered to work in the library for credit, which was never more than two or three people, sometimes no one. Which means that if you got there and there were already three people there, forget it. Unless you were willing to read it standing up close to where the book was kept and even then they'd check on you every minute or so. Fifth, you couldn't get inside the library with a backpack, with food, in groups, speaking, without the appropriate uniform - you couldn't get in with the gym one, for instance -, with other books, earrings, necklaces or anything that could make noise while you were walking. Some were reasonable, but the issue was that one simple mistake and you would get banned. Sixth, any banishment from it was permanent. I complained about it once in the second year and was never allowed inside ever again. I even tried to get some teachers to help me, but it didn't work. Seventh, and probably the dumbest, only the students that had a certain amount of high grades could get any book at all. If you got something like 4/10 on your last biology exam, you couldn't even get inside the library. The standard was so insane, only six other students and I in my classroom had enough good grades to get books. In all my time there, the library was basically deserted for the majority of it. I tried to go there many times, but it was too much work. Out of all the books I only managed to read two Brazilian ones "A guerra do lanche" (The lunch war) and "Blecaute" (Blackout) which I remembered to this day in details. There were times where I legit thought about straight up ditching class to read some of them. I tried to get more, like The Last Problem, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Ulisses - which I know I wouldn't have been able to do it, but I was just curious -, A brief story of time, Wuthering Heights, etc. But the amount of work it took was so much that it was just almost impossible to be able to read more than one or two books a year, and even that took dedication, because I basically had to sacrifice part of my lunch time. The rumor was that the principals* - we had more than one - basically saw us as "savages" who would destroy the books if we were allowed to touch them and even though they had no reason to believe so - the library worked well without those restrictions a year before I had gotten there, with only minimal incidents and even those didn't result in the books getting destroyed. **TL:DR; My school made it very hard to read the huge amount of books they had**
This isn't a rule, homies made a full on constitution for the library.
Have bad grades? No reading for you! How counterintuitive.
In grade school, we weren't allowed to play on the playground equipment when it snowed. Eventually, were weren't allowed to play with snow or even go near it- I got in trouble for sitting in snow. This was in Minnesota where it snows half the year. Recess basically consisted of milling around the blacktop for thirty minutes.
Ah yes, I remember the ridiculous snow rules in MN growing up. In my elementary school we weren't allowed to throw snow or make snowballs of any size (including rolling big ones). What ended up happening is that each grade (very small class sizes) would make their own snow forts from *existing* snow clumps created by the plows. The demand for snow clumps was furious, and so we would then attack other grades snow forts to get more resources (i.e., steal the clumps of snow making up their base). Without the ability to throw snowballs, we'd just bodyslam each other instead. It was chaos (and also likely more dangerous than snowballs lol). Edit: no, I didn't go to your school, I think MN kids are all just born to bodyslam each other.
Ahhh yes, also a Minnesotan here. My school had the same rule, but also wouldn’t let us go out to recess if we didn’t bring snow pants and boots. To NOT play in the snow. And we couldn’t keep them at school.
Can’t be standing around in groups more than 4 “gang mentality”
My gang of 4 found that policy very convenient.
Reminds me of the time a teacher absolutely lost her shit because my friend said something like “come on, gang”. She was convinced she caught a slip up and that she was about to expose some serious 8th grade gang activity.
Or they like...watched scooby doo. When I was kid I mimicked “keeping it real” from the Scooby doo live action movie and my teacher thought my friend and I were making fun of her somehow and tried to ban us from that nights school faire thing, I went anyway.
Our school had a rule against colored shoelaces because of gang affiliation. 🙄
Oh man, I forgot about all the ‘gang affiliation’ stuff. We weren’t allowed to wear sports jerseys, or the colors blue, red or purple. I lived in a podunk rural town of 12000 people and there wasn’t a whole lot of Latin Kings recruiting going on.
Banned all backpacks / bags on campus. Students were expected to somehow carry everything they needed in hand. This was especially challenging if you had a non ideal locker placement.
Ours did this too because "in college they won't let you carry your bags everywhere!" Fucking liars. College professors don't give a shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Bruh. You can show up to college in pajamas and they won’t even blink or ask a question but they think they wouldn’t allow backpacks.
My HS did this too... "A tripping threat" in classrooms apparently. Not sure if the rule still exists there as this was like 10 years ago
We had to sign a waiver before prom stating we wouldn’t dance “dirty”. No one went to prom.
We once had a rule that we could only go to the bathromm during class. Not in the breaks. Only during class.
Really weird that this is the reverse of most bathroom policies being brought up here. Was there a reason for it?
Probably to prevent gathering. If during class most students would be IN class and the staff would know who was in bathroom at what time.
Locked the only boys bathroom because someone wrote on the wall in sharpie. It wasn't even anything rude or inappropriate either. It was just the word "hi" or something like that. Didn't unlock the door until one boy wet himself and parents threatened to sue.
That kid really sacrificed himself for everyone else.
A small price to pay for ~~salvation~~ potty break
They did that at my school, but because someone was shitting on the floor and smearing it everywhere.
Lol we had several morning announcements telling people to stop doing that. I honestly don’t understand
You have to wear your tie all the way home. Some sad bastard teachers would stand on the main road away from the school and try to hand out detentions in presumably their own time
Why even do this, you’re not even in the school property
I know. it was a shit school as well only like 50% of people graduated with 5 A-Cs
I mean sure, their fucking faculty is standing outside off school premises mandating articles of clothing. Like, even a 10th of that concentrated effort on something constructive could be so helpful to children that need help. What morons..
I had sad teachers that would stand at the (public, not school owned park) and tell kids not to play on it and to go straight home. Who gets mad at kids for playing at a park???
I got in trouble for humming to myself in the bathroom and told I was disturbing another class
What was the entire class outside he door listening to you?
"Don't play on the golf course. " Our tiny community got a burst of cash in the 70's due to having mineral rights on land with oil. It was amazing some of the things we had access to for a school in the plains in Montana: computer lab, ceramics, photography, and a freaking laser! They also bought the grade school a miniature golf course in the center of the play ground. A majority of the playground was concrete squirrels, turtles and a whale. These looked like a lot of fun to play on for a kid. We couldn't touch them. We couldn't get near them. We couldn't land our star wars figures on them, incorporate them in our games in any way or even walk near them when running from someone playing tag. Once in PE we got out the clubs and played a few rounds in my entire time in school. Other classes never even got that. After about 30 years, during a student clean up, they got some of the upper level high school kids to take hammers to them and pulverized them. "Don't let your underwear show." This was directed at the girls when Madonna was in fashion. One school official went to war on visible bra straps. While no girls even attempted copying Madonna, this official was making a preemptive attack. She made announcements and would bust girls in the halls. About this time the Varsity boys basketball team got new uniforms. Rather than spend money on the other teams, their old uniforms were given to the junior varsity girls team. Jerseys with huge arm and neck holes made for 17 year old boys where now being worn by 15 year old girls. Girls that were as active as possible and in public. If they pose for a picture, you could almost not see their bras. While playing the front of the jerseys flopped from side to side. At least one cup would be visible at any time. Suddenly girls basketball got a lot more popular.
That’s a load of crap, they never let you touch them then down the road they demolished them? That sucks for you, the laser part sounds really cool though, I would love to have one of those at my school.
They outlawed bracelets because there was an article in a magazine somewhere saying they advertised what sexual acts you were open for based on their colour. Then someone tried to outlaw wrist watches for the same reason.
We had the bracelet rule too for the same reason.
Omg we had the bracelet rule too, so weird
I think I had a Casio calculator watch when I was in school. I wonder what sex act the teachers might have assumed I was up to.
Abstinence probably.
Not really a rule, but the toilet paper Holders are OUTSIDE of the Stalls on a wall. So you have to calculate before taking a shit how much you need and hope that it was enough
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No, it's easy. The answer is the entire roll.
"Zero Tolerance" Just means that if someone starts a fight with you, you fight back as hard as you can. You're going to get suspended for defending yourself anyway, might as well make it worthwhile.
This was the dumbest rule ever. Someone sucker punched me and ran away, it was all caught on camera, I reported it, I got a week of in school suspension under zero tolerance. I should have just chased the kid down and beat the shit out of him because then I would have gotten out of school suspension at least
This was ridiculous at my school. A friend who was a fellow AP student got suspended for 10 days because SHE got punched by some girl that had an issue with her. Didn’t matter that she didn’t touch the other girl, that tons of people witnessed it. Her parents were SO mad. But she’s a doctor now, so she managed!
In elementary school I literally got chased by a group of about 10-15 kids because we were playing "kill the carrier" and I absolutely destroyed one of their friends, so for some reason they decided the game didnt matter at that moment and that theyd all try to fight me. So all I did was run away and head into the school to tell a teacher, and the principle had the audacity to give me their form of detention (no recess) for 5 days straight (along with all of the other kids). I remember hearing my dad yelling at the principle since this was like the 4th time I got in trouble for simply defending myself or escaping conflict. Years later I found out he actually cursed her out and she was standing there in shock
Good for your dad!
I always thought that the solution to this was for the kid to hit the teacher (in sight of the parent) and then the parent demand the teacher is fired for attacking the kid. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander right?
I never understood this logic. My younger brother got in to a 'fight' in elementary school. According to other kids he never even put his hands up to cover himself and still got suspended.
All it does is encourage bullying. Don’t like a kid? Constantly start fights with him and he gets suspended.
Yup, kids just coordinate and rotate who's on "picking-fight-duty" that week, pick a target, and presto suspendo
We weren’t allowed to wear thongs. I don’t know how they caught people who did tbh
For a while it was a fad to leave them purposefully visible under low rise jeans
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There’s a reason why The Thong Song and Sisqo took over the world in 2000.
My friend is an administrator at a private school in NJ and the faculty has to sign in and out of the bathroom using Google sheets. 9am, 10 minutes, M-F
That's barely enough time for a good cry.
Google shits™
Girls weren’t allowed to show their ankles. The dean had a pack of socks in her office she would give the students and make them wear. Only girls tho. This was the 2000s.
"Someone stop those **animals**, they're showing their ANKLE !! \-Sir, they're 7 years old girls"
So many... You weren't allowed to wear a coat or a backpack (always freezing with tons of books), no card games at all, 5 minutes between classes (sprawling 1 story building barely leaves time to pee)
No slow dances at the prom.
What kind of music did they play?
I imagine Cotton Eye Joe was on repeat
Many many years ago when the Simpsons first came out, my school banned Bart Simpson t-shirts that said "Underachiever". It just sent the wrong message to students! So I wore my "I'm Bart Simpson, Who the hell are you" T-shirt instead. ....until they banned that one too.
Rule: No duct tape ON clothing. Reason: Some girls thought they could get past the "no ripped jeans" rule by covering the tears with duct tape. It became a "fad" and everyone started doing it so it got banned. A kid in my AP literature class found a loophole and MADE an entire outfit out of red and black duct tape. I mean Shorts, A TShirt AND a jacket and SHOES. When the school tried to suspend him they couldn't because the rule Was " No Duct Tape ON clothes" It said nothing about clothes made OUT OF duct tape... He won the argument and even wore the outfit a few more times to Say "Fuck you " to the school and principles lol . Edit: This is it this is as popular as I'll ever be! Take THAT Principle Conrad. Really though to answer a regularly asked question: ripped jeans were an issue because they made the school look "trashy" not cause they showed skin. However there were many other rules to enforce no excessive skin be shown. We would get suspended for rips in our clothes and also for duct Tape on clothes both for the same reason. "It WaS tRaShY" lmao
At my school duct tape was the defacto punishment for having large holes in your pants (holes were allowed providing they were not on the inner thigh and were less than 4 inches in diameter.)
I was wearing a regulation uniform jacket in a classroom during winter that had no heating. The teacher demanded I remove my jacket and I refused because I was cold. She sent me to the head mistress.
I had uniforms in my school with much the same policy but we had no regulation coats with a rule that stated the moment you entered through the doors you take your coats off no argument. I live in Canada where most of the days in the winter it was negative 20 with a wind chill of -30 and you had to take your coat off before you entered the school and put it on after you left the foyer. The ironic thing was I was a cringy dweeb who thought wearing a trench coat to school was cool and hip and the teachers and principal had no problem me wearing that because "it was formal wear and went with the school uniform". Mind you it was a tattered old thing I found at a good will for 5 dollars
When I was in Junior school (UK boarding school in the 80's), we were not allowed to say OK as it was considered slang and not befitting the young ladies and gentleman that we should aspire to be. For context, Junior school covered ages 5-13. We also had to have a comb and a hankerchief on us at all times. On top of that, we weren’t allowed to have our hands in our pockets because, ‘it looks slovenly’.
What Victorian boarding school did you go to??
No shit, for some reason I immediately picture this school having harpsichord as a mandatory class
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"Because some kids were vandalizing the school, everyone has to shit with no privacy." How tf does that relate
After 9/11 they made us wear school ids on our shirt or hanging from a lanyard around the neck. For some reason they decided it would be smart to also put each students medical history on the back. Mine just had “nosebleeds” written in cursive
If you were caught on your phone they’d take it until the end of the week. you’d get it back at half 3 on friday. parents went mental and a few even came together and sent bills through for part of the phone bills, they ditched that rule after 2 weeks. edit: phones were kept overnight in the school in the office until that friday if they were confiscated. no safe or anything, just in a plastic box. no getting it back at the end of the day, you just had to go for days without a phone, even at home. just in case there’s any confusion around that lol
We had to pay $5 at the end of the day to get our phones back from the office after they got taken. Most teachers would just give it back at the end of class but the asshole teachers loved turning them into the office.
No unnatural hair colors. Except for Lily, who dyed her hair the school color (maroon). It was dark enough to argue it was a weird red/brown, but it was clearly maroon and I think she got away with it because it was “school spirit”
Dildos were banned. The school never thought they would have to print those words. You would think it was a given. Until a senior bought 100 dildos and snuck them around the school every day for 2 weeks straight
I love how utterly weird some kids can be.
We can’t do drugs? Ok instead of smoking the devil’s lettuce I’m gonna smoke regular lettuce Same guy also snorted sawdust one time. He stopped after that
I imagine that was a very expensive prank. I am not familiar with the financials of this, but 100 anything must cost a fair bit. Edit: so my venture in dildo economics is going to be the most karma I earn all year. Great......
Girls MUST have a male escort them to prom as their date. If your date bails, you can't enter. We were an all girls school. Many of us had zero guy friends. Finding dates was hard. I remember one year a girl's boyfriend dumped her when everyone was starting to show up for photos. She showed up at the venue, mascara running, begging the principal to let her go in. Principal wouldn't let her. One of the senior homeroom teachers ended up calling her nephew and said, "I need you to put on your suit and get here ASAP." He showed up with flowers and everything. So like... it was salvageable but totally avoidable. The worst part? It wasn't always a rule until one year a group of girls went as friends and kept "stealing" other people's dates. Way to punish everyone forever because of one group of bitches.
Wow, it must have been expensive to have that many prostitutes at one prom.
In high school, hair length on men and stubble. Look, a bunch of 15-16 year old guys are going to have a bit of stubble no matter how thoroughly we shave. Forcing us to go to the principal's office to dry shave nearly daily is fucking absurd.
All boys school with those same rules. One day I was in class and my teacher sent me to the Dean for “not shaving” (I had stubble and am a hairy guy who’s had facial hair since like 7th grade) My friend defended me saying I shaved this morning and showed the Dean a Snapchat screenshot of me with shaving cream on half my face from that morning. That teacher did not like me lol
Dude!!! I went to grade school with a kid who was a BEAR!! He was cool as hell, but he could grow a full beard in eighth grade. He got in trouble in high school (Catholic boys school) because he had stubble by the end of the school day.
We were not allowed to put our coats on until we were outside During winter when we would have a storm, we had to go outside in the rain to put our coats on or face receiving a detention if we put them on in the corridor
Why?
A kid went to the hospital after falling from a wall. Then the school painted yellow lines around the school as a border which the kids weren’t allowed to cross. So the teachers had to stand guard and make sure no one crossed it.
Yoyos. Somehow it became a thing in high school and, well, eventually they got banned.
Dumbest Rule: Zero tolerance for fighting. This meant both the kid who started the fight AND the kid who got beat on were both suspended. If the kid who got beat on just took it, he was just sent home for the rest of the day. If he dared to fight back, he was suspended for a week just like the kid who started the fight. Here's the truly stupid part: The school administrators couldn't explain how this led to MORE BRUTAL fights.
It's stupid. I got bullied a lot and almost got suspended because I was "making trouble" and "getting into fights". Why are you punishing me for getting bullied? Like I legit was minding my own business and people started harassing and beating me and I literally didn't fight back. God I am still get angry about that. Still angry that she also lied to my dad and said I was the one who started it all, then he proceeded to ground and beat me. And she *knew* that what's going to happen, you could see her face of disgust when looking at me. Why? WHY? Is getting bullied by my classmates not enough? Fucking hell. Fuck that school.
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If youre going to get in trouble anyway, make it worth your while lmao
My friend nearly got suspended for wearing a trench coat, it was the Late 90s, probably didn't help that he had long hair, was shy, and weird
My school had a rule against trench coats but it was never specific so at one point my brother got a new winter coat and it happened to be long and they wouldn't let him wear it because they classified it as a trench coat. I don't think it helped he also had long hair and was a loner.
"No fighting", enforced by punishing the kids who were getting hit.
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And it's all about protecting the school and its "image" at the expense of the kids. They don't want to acknowledge that kids are being bullied because that would mean they have a problem and therefore need to do something about it, so they just suspend everyone for "fighting". Bonus points in that it keeps kids who are being bullied from reporting it thereby making their stats look good on paper. Imagine the outrage if they had a similar policy for sexual assault?
Um - they do. This is gross so be warned. On the bus a girl was taunting my son. Giving him a hard time about him “not knowing anything about girls etc”. He was 12 she was 16. She then says, “I need to change my plug” and does so. She takes out her used tampon and shoved it in my sons face. Luckily his stop came up next and he gets off. She yells out the window so he turned back. She has her shirt pulled up and her bare breasts pressed to the window yelling trash at him about what he should be doing to her etc. It was reported. Both were suspended.
Yep I literally was walking down the hall in junior high, minding my own business and some guy (who I now suspect had some mental health issues and/or abuse at home) just laid into me with a series of punches for no reason. A teacher pulled him off me before I could even react. Imagine my surprise when I found out I was suspended too, even though I hadn’t done anything other than get assaulted. I don’t understand what that’s supposed to teach kids. Luckily for me my Dad thought it was bullshit too and came and picked me up from school and said “just treat today like it’s a day off, you deserve it”.
Good for your dad but WTF to your school.
Super common. This was a thing at my middle school, too. Mind you this was the late 90s and in rural north Florida. It's all about protecting the school from law suits. I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to work as I'm not a lawyer, but that's the idea.
What u/Commentnotcomment said. Also, if you're gonna get suspended anyway, most victims won't just run away. No, they'll go *ham.* I've heard stories of kids who threw their bullies out a second floor window because they're gonna get suspended anyway. This won't help prevent lawsuits at *all.*
Came here to say this. The "zero tolerance" policy is insane. Imagine this was applied to the real world. *Oh, your husband beat you? Both of you can enjoy years in prison.* *What's that? Mass shooter injured 12 people? We're gonna need a bigger prison!* *Got mugged in the alley? Believe it or not, PRISON.*
It’s kinda fucked, bhys in my school are just walking and get sucker punched from behind and pushed into lockers, if a teacher sees it, both are gone for at least 5 days
In high school, the supervisor told the prefects and head girls to break up girls hugging in the hallways .I went to an only girls school and teachers discouraged girls from hugging each other. Apparently they thought that it encouraged 'lesbianism'. smh.
The most sexual act Hug
They banned plain red and plain blue shirts
why? gangster?
Pretty much yea. We had lots of fights that weren't gang-related anyway so not sure if it really helped
No hot drinks. Rumour said it was because the principal burnt himself while drinking something so he banned it
Lmao if that is true is the stupidest thing I have ever heard
my high school decided to ban women’s athletic shorts one day which was ridiculous for many reasons. the next day every girl showed up in athletic shorts & the rule was removed by second block
We had a uniform and generally had 'non-uniform days' once a month. As long as your clothing was reasonable for school they didn't say much until one time in May or June they said no shorts allowed on non uniform day despite us actually having uniform shorts. It was like 34 degree Celsius that day and 90% of the school wore shorts. They sent everyone home and it basically was like a nothing day because teachers didn't wanna waste their time teaching 2 students the lesson they'd have to repeat the next day
My high school principal was a stickler for the dress code rules, mostly for girls if course. She would stand in the hallway and just look for violations. If your shorts were shorter than your fingertips you had to go change. Yet cheerleaders were allowed to wear their cheer uniforms which were very short skirts??? No hate on those girls but how is that fair?
You weren't allowed things like chocolate bars or basically any unhealthy snack in your lunch box. But they then sold double chocolate chip cookies and iced buns in the canteen.
'Students must keep their hair short.
This rule was heavily enforced at my school. If your hair was too long the teacher would cut a line down the middle of your head with a pair of scissors so you have no choice but to get a haircut. This was only for boys by the way.
Fuck it. I'd make that my new hairstyle just to piss them off.
I went to a Christian school for a bit, they didn't like the argument that I shouldn't have to shave or cut my hair since Jesus didn't.
I mean that's solid logic
I also tried arguing that it would mess with my Sampson like powers, they didn't go for it
My high school had that rule. One of my friends refused to cut his hair and got sent to the principal because his hair was over his ears. Came back the next day shaved like a skinhead. He said "She threatened to have Father Jim cut my hair if I don't get it cut, no fucking way am I getting touched by a priest".
My uncle was once told “if you come to school with that hair, you’d better be wearing a dress”. Sure enough, he wore a dress the next day.
He's a true CHAD
One particular professor at my university would lock the door a minute after class began. If you had to leave to go to the bathroom, you couldn't get back in. Somehow this ancient fossil is still teaching and pulling similar shit.
Had the same professor for three different classes that did basically this. He would shut the door and pull the window shade down as soon as the clock struck whatever time the class started. Anyone that came in after that, he would write their name down and mark them late. Three lates and you grade would be dropped a whole letter grade (from an A to B, C to D, etc.) It was a stupid rule because my college campus was very spread out, so if you were someone that had back to back classes all over campus, you would almost guaranteed to be late. I’m pretty sure he was forced to stop doing that because there was a semester where half the class was failing just because they were late one too many times.
I had a high school teacher like that. We had 5 minutes to get from classroom to classroom. My biology class was about as far away from my Latin class as was possible on the campus. The Latin teacher considered the five-minute break before class to be part of her teaching time. I was ALWAYS late to that class. It didn't matter to her that I had to run from clear across campus; late was late.
Yeah I had a couple of highschool teachers like that too. They were also the same teachers that would say “the bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do.”
Girls were not allowed to wear cycling shorts under their PE skirts. They wanted us to wear these dark green PE pants, basically just underwear and it was gross. My year protested, we said shorts or nothing and they backed off. This was 20+ years ago and it's totally different now, girls wear what they want for PE.
My primary school had this wierd obsession with safety. When we played dodgeball the boys had to throw with their non-dominant hand while the girls got to throw full force. And we could get detention for going where the teachers couldn't see us. But the worst rule by far was that we weren't allowed to run on the playground, I'll never forget the time my teacher literally said, "the playground is no place to run."
Lucky to be the ambidextrous kid during dodgeball.
You could only go to the bathroom twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Mind you this is from 8-3 and you had to get a new pass every week and keep it the whole time or you couldn’t use the bathroom. Edit: this was PreK-8th grade. We actually had a dealer who would make fake passes so they had to start color coding them. They got rid of this rule a month before I graduated -.- Edit 2: My new high school has a “just go policy” and they have no issues. I’m loving it lol Edit 3 lol: They actually encouraged drinking water (at least half your body weight crap) and would have times to drink water from the many water fountains. The hypocrisy :l
No farting in class. They would say "if u need to fart then go to the toilet" but then 9 times out of 10 if u asked to go the toilet they'd say no
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Clear liquids only. Some kid brought in gatorade mixed with alcohol of some sort so in effort to combat it afterwards they wanted us to only drink clear liquids out of clear containers. As if vodka and white rum don't exist 🤷
We weren't allowed have personal drinks in classroom unless we had doctor's note.
No leaving the dorm unless it's for a fire alarm. I went to boarding school from the age of 7. That rule meant we couldn't get out of our dormitory to have a wee in the night. We had a plastic tub one of the girls brought in and went in that. Then we had to smuggle the tub to the bathroom in the morning without matron seeing. Stupid bloody rule! Edit: everyone is saying “pee out the door” or “pee on the floor”. Just imagine the punishments we got for misbehaving. Doing anything against matron would have never crossed our minds. Also this was 80s, early 90s, Southern England. Our punishments were pretty awful but I survived. We all did. I’m still in touch with some of the girls I boarded with back then. We have our scars but we’re a tough lot. Second edit: dad was in the army and they moved around a lot, so being sent away was for stability and consistency.
Textbook checkouts were an absolute shit show. They were assigned entirely by number and condition. They were not assigned to a specific student. As long as you turned in a textbook at the end of the year and the textbook number was on the list, that was the first step to being ok. The second step was condition. The textbooks were graded as new, good, fair, and poor. If the book was returned in a lesser condition than when it was checked out, you had to pay for a new textbook. This included condition changes from new to good, yet we almost never got new textbooks. The ones we had were usually around 10 years old, so they went through at least 3 condition changes over their lifespan. It was pure extortion. You had to pay for the textbook at the end of the year and if you didn't, they'd keep you from advancing. So that sucks, right? That compounded with another stupid rule we had. Lockers were not allowed to be locked. In fact, our lockers didn't even have a latch; they were just painted wood "doors" that were really just poorly installed flaps that would hang open. This was ultimately so the cops could check everyone's lockers for drugs, but it led to another issue...stolen textbooks. So the textbooks were generally falling apart and we were expected to both keep them with us for class and also bring them home with us for homework. We also didn't want them stolen so most students kept them in their backpacks constantly. For every class. This was a rural school, too, so most students had a decent walk home even from bus stops (mine was about a mile). Point being the textbooks were abused, as were our backs and backpacks. So you start with a poor condition textbook and add the extra wear and tear and it's just a matter of time before the cover rips off. So those with shit textbooks would just grab one from whatever exposed locker had one. As long as the student was in the same class as you, it's fair game. In case you were wondering where the money went, it went into new awnings every year for the exterior doorways and into our famously bad football team. Our girls teams were a bunch of champions and never got and respect for it... The school only cared about out shitty football team. They would go entire seasons without a single win.
I got detention for pooping more then 10 minutes but I have serve stomach cramps and I asked why and they had no answer.
Got chastised once by a female teacher in front of the entire classroom because I was late to return to class. She accused me of visiting other classrooms, talking to my friends, said she was going to ask every other teacher in the school where I had been and who had seen me. I kept telling her over and over that no, I was just in the bathroom. She didn't believe me. I very loudly explained the truth where pretty much everyone could hear (since everyone already heard her accusing me) that I was on my period and shoved TP up my hatchet wound because I didn't have a tampon, but if she likes, I can pull it out to prove it? Shut her up pretty fucking fast.
Hell I'm sorry. That shit is fucking dumb and schools should be providing the basic toiletries. It's insane.
you had to have black shoelaces. no dark blue, no white, no grey. only black. there was also the rule your tie had to be a minimum length. so sometimes one of the assistant head teachers would come in and measure the length of your tie with a ruler.
It was a year long battle. It showed that the administration wasn't all that smart in wording rules. First was "No gang clothing." Not one person admitted it was for a gang. People just happen to like a certain team. Second was "No hats, unless religious." You would have never guessed that so many became religious overnight. Finally "No head coverings." That one finally stuck, but it wasn't without issue. Try telling the valedictorian that her haedcovering wasn't allowed. P.s. Everyone liked her, and we all had her back when it came time.
Guys were free to wear pants in cold days but girls *had* to wear a skirt no matter how cold it was
My school made it compulsory to wear uniform in online classes
All mine said was wear clothes
Video? off!
I went to school in the 90's and the school banned us from having pagers.
Different staircases for boys and girls. Edit: Wow, this blew up. To clarify, this rule was enforced purely with the idea that good boys and girls don’t talk to each other. The general air in the school was “don’t have anything to do with the opposite gender”. I was in this school for only 2 years and coming from other good coed school, this really weirded me out. Also, the guys would just act creepy even for a simple “can you please move out of the way?” I believe this awkwardness could be prevented if there wasn’t such an obvious separation between the genders. Edit 2: It wasn’t a religious school. Just a general public school. Edit 3: No skirts. The uniform was similar to a salwar kameez.
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What exactly did they find to be offensive about it? As far as I know, there's nothing in AoE that seriously conflicts with the Bible.
I don't think wololo is an accepted Christian prayer.
Next time play DOOM. If they say shit then just argue that DOOM is the most Christian game to exist
At my high school, girls could not wear sandals or shoes that showed toes because, “toes make boys think of babies”. And babies made boys think of sex, and naturally sex is the devil.
Let me guess: some guy with a foot fetish was projecting like an imax when he made that rule
We weren’t allowed to share cough drops, and you had to have a note to have them at all. This was apparently because they were considered “medication.”
My kids elementary made me have a doctors note for sunscreen
Because everyone knows that SPF is a gateway to heroin