Narrow Minded High School Tyranny!! okay, maybe that's over the top.

[progressivebydesign]

So I live in a lovely, right wingish, town. This is the scandal du jour:

<<Freak dancing. Dirty dancing. Bumping and grinding.
It doesn’t matter what the kids call it these days. What does matter to hundreds of Gig Harbor High School students is that administrators cut short a campus dance last weekend and have suspended dances for the rest of the year, at least temporarily.

The promiscuous behavior came to a boiling point Saturday at Gig Harbor High’s tolo dance, which the school estimates drew about 700 students.>>

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/6368132p-5681349c.html


My daughter attended the dance. A SMALL group of kids were dancing MTV-style, and the principal freaked out, stopping the dance in the middle and turning the kids out onto the street. He has now stated that the proms are cancelled, and dances for the next several years. He is now saying it's because the kids were "defiant" but that's BS. A garbled message was announced in the middle of the dance, asking them to stop dancing inappropriately. Even though there were plenty of adults and two police there, they didn't kick out the handful of offenders, they stopped the whole dance.

The school has a new principal for the past 1 1/2 years and he's super uptight, uber-Church guy. Belongs to the mega evangelical church across from the school. the dean of students is a hard core Mormon who accuses the kids of "being high" and searches thru their cell phones and reads their text messages if he sees they have the phone out. He also will check the songs on their ipods if they have it out, to make sure they're not indicative of drugs or sex. (seriously). This town and area is SOOO chockful of the morally indignant. This is the town where the parents threatened to sue if the teacher showed "Supersize Me" to the students. The funny thing is, for all of the good-god-fearin' parent's efforts to keep the kids "moral" and away from the "filth of dancing", so many kids at the high school are drunk, doing drugs, having sex, etc.

According to the majority of the students, they're all pissed. The dances in the past few years were much worse, and this one was tame. It's like living in 1950s Texas or something.

I posted a bit on the site, but have been attacked and shot down by the morally-perfect posters who believe that kids are getting pregnant at dances. or something. I'm not one of those clueless parents, but you gotta pick your battles.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. As one who's chaperoned many teen dances...

I always figured that teens could either be dancing suggestively in a gym, or fucking in the back seat of a car.

[Ookie]

2. This stuff just makes me crazy!

What kind of example do these morons set when their reaction to something they personally find distasteful is to completely shut down all school dances? If these kids were violating some rule, they should be requested to stop, and if it continues to be an issue, then those individuals should be asked to leave. To cancel all dances because one uptight, sexually repressed, right wing, fundie nut job can't stand to see kids dance in a suggestive manner is way whacked! Does he really think that school dances are the only place kids find each other attractive?

[fortyfeetunder]

3. It's time for the parents and student to take back the school

Last time I recall GHHS is a public school, not an extension of a fundamentalist church whack-job principal. Parents and students don't have to put up with that type of tyranny. They need to make that principal rescind this draconian order.

And of course, parents and students should use just as much enthusiasm to ensure academic stability there as well as the social aspects.