Faith under fire: Student told to remove rosary

[LWolf]

202. There is no consensus on school dress code issues.

There shouldn't be.

There should always be tension between setting reasonable restrictions and stepping over a line into being more authoritarian than necessary to maintain a safe, respectful environment.

Whenever you've got large groups of other people's children spending all day long under the care and supervision of non-parental adults, there will be tension, and some conflict.

It's not exactly a hot news item when a child and his family disagree with a rule or consequence at school.

Dress codes can be an important part of creating and maintaining that safe, respectful environment that we all want for students. Sometimes schools and districts err on the side of stricter codes than are really necessary. I understand why; I spend all day every work day at school. I don't really think the rosary is an issue; I wouldn't have thought it needed to be hidden. There aren't any gangs making use of rosaries as gang attire in my area, though. If there were, it might be different.

I also don't think asking the kid to put it under his shirt was over the line. I do think his refusal WAS. Another way we maintain a safe, respectful environment is by enforcing the expectation that students will follow adult directions the first time; if they think the directions are a problem, their parents can take it up with admins.

I don't see this as putting "his faith under fire." I see it as the student using the rule to garner more attention for, not his faith, but his expression of that faith, than he was getting wearing the rosary to begin with.