WBASD: Detention for 6-year-olds?

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.---Francis Vincent Zappa

It’s been an unusually warm March.

It feels more like June than March. So much so, in fact, that I’m all for activities that could exacerbate and accelerate any and all effects that can be attributed to Global Warming, Climate Change, or whatever the communist infiltrators are calling it these warmest of days.

Before any further circumlocutory meanderings, I copied the following from the Wilkes-Barre Area School District Web site…

Shorts-

1. Shorts may only be worn from April 1st through October 31st inclusively.

2. Students will be permitted to wear solid color (Khaki (Beige/Tan), Blue, Black, Brown, Gray, Olive or Dark Green) shorts that are sized to fit. No plain white shorts are permitted.

Unbeknownst to me, my grandson, Jeremy, wore khaki shorts to school one week ago--March, 15, 2012. On that particular summer’s day, he attended kindergarten, came home as usual on the bus and that was that.

Turns out, today he wore those same khaki shorts to school. Only this time, someone from the office at Heights Elementary made their way through the parent-provided contact list because this time Jeremy was made to sit in the principal’s office until this most egregious of violations of the WBASD’s dress code was corrected.

His mother was called, but she was showering in advance of shuffling off to work. Next a message was left on our imported answering machine. A call to his other grandmother quickly followed. Around the same time, Wifey called his father who was at work. At approximately 9 AM, his mother noticed the missed call and contacted the school. The following is what she was told…

Paraphrasing here: Bring a pair of approved long pants to the school, or little Jeremy will spend the day sitting in the principal’s office.

So his mother rushed the legal pants to the school, Jeremy changed in the nurse’s office and he was allowed to get on with his regularly scheduled education.

Here’s my problem with all of this…

Jeremy has been a student in this school district since September of 2011. Dress codes, discipline, rules and regulations are things I’m pretty sure he’s not well schooled in. His parents should be, or, at least, need to be. But not him.

Further, it’s not like he’s a seventh-grader and knows the dress code inside and out. He’s a little kid but weeks removed from his 6th birthday. And I do not believe for a nanosecond that he should have been made to sit on a seat he had to consider to be a hot seat for any oversight or infraction made by his parents.

I’m sure the staff did their level best to make him feel at ease, but at that tender age, being yanked out of line and told to sit tight in the principle’s office had to cause him some unrest. And not only do I see that as totally unnecessary, I’m just a bit ticked off over the mishandling of this entire non-event.

Of course, we were treated to the well-worn banalities about zero tolerance. And we were told that despite the almost summer-like conditions of late, shorts were still unnecessary because the school is air-conditioned (as if all schools are so cooled).

To that I say, poppycock!

To reflexively cite zero tolerance policies in lieu of hands-on problem solving mixed with a smidgeon of compassion is the crux of intellectual laziness. Somebody erred in response to an error. Not an affront to civilization, mind you…an error that went uncorrected just a week prior.

And the long and short of it all is, somebody scared a little kid when they didn’t need to. And that somebody is partly entrusted with the intellectual and emotional development of little kids.

This is what happens when those who would be the leaders of our future leaders are devoid of leadership qualities. This is what happens when the future of one’s local school district is decided by way of little more than an electoral popularity contest. This is what happens when the inept and the corrupt carve out half-thought public policies.

So let the impressionable kindergartners beware.

And let the voters of Wilkes-Barre finally remove their fat heads from where their own excrement is processed.

Later