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Your chapstick is illegal now.
For those of you who don't know, I teach middle school and high school in a public megadistrict in the southern United States. Today I had to sit through my annual med training, which is required of all teachers every summer, in the event that we would ever want to be authorized to give a student any medical assistance whatsoever, ranging from a life-saving EpiPen injection to, you know, giving them a cough drop if they're coughing a lot.
I'm not kidding about that last one.
So the official rule in my district is that all over-the-counter medications, including cough drops (no really), are banned on school property. The only way that a student would be allowed to either a) carry or b) receive over-the-counter medications from a school nurse is if the student files a Special Permission Form with the district office that must be signed by their parent/guardian, their physician, and a licensed notary. Still not kidding about any of this. So yes, that's right: The school nurses in my district aren't allowed to give you Tylenol, a cough drop, or anything unless you go to all the trouble of getting your physician AND a licensed notary to sign this super-special form for you. And you have to get that done every summer, too, since the form is only valid for the duration of one school year. If you don't have that form on file, too bad, the best that we can give you is animal crackers and a call home.
Also I, as a teacher, am perfectly allowed to keep cough drops in my room, but I'm not allowed to ever give one to a student unless a) the student has their permission form on file and b) I have my certificate stating that I've completed the district medical training on hand. Also I'm supposed to both document with Official Paperwork AND call home to notify the parent/guardian any time that I give a student medication at school, which includes cough drops.
Oh, and guess what's new this year?! The definition of "over-the-counter medication" has expanded to include ALL forms of chapstick and lotion.
That's right.
You're not allowed to bring Lip Smackers to school anymore. Not unless you have documentation signed by your physician and a licensed notary which states that you have permission to do so. To say nothing of hand lotion.
Likelihood that this rule is ever going to be enforced: zero. But it's on the books nevertheless.
Oh, and my medical training? After having sat through one hour of lecture and completed a short written exam, I am now licensed to administer medication to my students orally, in their eyes and ears, through a stomach tube, or rectally. However, a state law prevents teachers from ever being authorized to touch either a throat apparatus or a catheter. So yes, that's right: I am now "trained" and capable of either injecting medicine directly into a hole in your stomach or shoving a syringe up your rectum, should the need ever arise, yet will never be allowed to touch your catheter or any tubes in your throat. Just so that's clear.
God I love bureaucracy.
I'm not kidding about that last one.
So the official rule in my district is that all over-the-counter medications, including cough drops (no really), are banned on school property. The only way that a student would be allowed to either a) carry or b) receive over-the-counter medications from a school nurse is if the student files a Special Permission Form with the district office that must be signed by their parent/guardian, their physician, and a licensed notary. Still not kidding about any of this. So yes, that's right: The school nurses in my district aren't allowed to give you Tylenol, a cough drop, or anything unless you go to all the trouble of getting your physician AND a licensed notary to sign this super-special form for you. And you have to get that done every summer, too, since the form is only valid for the duration of one school year. If you don't have that form on file, too bad, the best that we can give you is animal crackers and a call home.
Also I, as a teacher, am perfectly allowed to keep cough drops in my room, but I'm not allowed to ever give one to a student unless a) the student has their permission form on file and b) I have my certificate stating that I've completed the district medical training on hand. Also I'm supposed to both document with Official Paperwork AND call home to notify the parent/guardian any time that I give a student medication at school, which includes cough drops.
Oh, and guess what's new this year?! The definition of "over-the-counter medication" has expanded to include ALL forms of chapstick and lotion.
That's right.
You're not allowed to bring Lip Smackers to school anymore. Not unless you have documentation signed by your physician and a licensed notary which states that you have permission to do so. To say nothing of hand lotion.
Likelihood that this rule is ever going to be enforced: zero. But it's on the books nevertheless.
Oh, and my medical training? After having sat through one hour of lecture and completed a short written exam, I am now licensed to administer medication to my students orally, in their eyes and ears, through a stomach tube, or rectally. However, a state law prevents teachers from ever being authorized to touch either a throat apparatus or a catheter. So yes, that's right: I am now "trained" and capable of either injecting medicine directly into a hole in your stomach or shoving a syringe up your rectum, should the need ever arise, yet will never be allowed to touch your catheter or any tubes in your throat. Just so that's clear.
God I love bureaucracy.
no subject
The hoodie thing is definitely a safety issue, but it's got nothing to do with guns. The issue is that teachers need to be able to see your face at all times. This is both for mundane reasons (so that I can make sure that you're not asleep in class) and for safety reasons (so that I can make sure that you aren't passed out or unconscious at your desk). When a kid is sitting with his head slightly lowered - like, when he's looking down at his desk - and he's wearing a hoodie, then I can't see his face anymore. Which is a problem. Yes, there have been actual incidents of students passing out at their desks without their teacher noticing because they managed to slump against the back of their seat with their heads slightly lowered, and because they were wearing hoodies the teacher couldn't see that their eyes were closed. I also need to be able to see my student's faces in case one of them is starting to blink rapidly or looks even close to passing out and/or falling asleep. Because that's when I need to intervene right away. If they're just sleepy, I will actually let them stand up and get a drink of water, if that will help them wake up. If they're not just sleepy - if they're sick, dizzy, hypoglycemic, OD'ing on meds, or whatever - then I'm immediately responsible for taking the appropriate action right away. Which I can't do if they can hide their faces from me with a hoodie.
2) You cannot interact with anyone that is a grade lower than you because you WILL beat them up/rape them/sell drugs to them
3) You cannot under any circumstances EVER wear fingerless gloves! EVER!! Because!............I said so
I'm assuming that these rules exist because there have been actual incidents in the past where, say, fingerless gloves actually caused a problem. Yes I know this looks "stupid" on the surface but there's often a reason for "stupid" rules being enacted.
Let me give you another example. Silly bands. Silly bands were banned at the middle school where I teach (in the morning) from the start of the school year. I thought that this was a stupid rule, but the other teachers warned me that the kids would actually disrupt classes by fighting over the stupid silly bands, so they had to go.
Then the students in my high school classes (which I teach in the afternoon) actually starting disrupting classes by fighting over silly bands. It was the dumbest effing thing ever. But yeah, within a week silly bands were banned at the high school too. You think that rule is stupid? Blame the kids who were doing the INCREDIBLY STUPID behavior that led to the rule having to exist in the first place.
...Or so I say, but yeah, there's still not a good reason (outside of the liability issue) for my school district to have banned chapstick. Especially since it's something that a lot of students need for basic comfort, as opposed to something that they could definitely survive without (as is the case with silly bands, fingerless gloves, and hoodies). And either way it doesn't matter because I doubt this rule will be enforced.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2011-07-16 03:58 am (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2011-07-16 04:44 am (UTC)(link)Though I will say, the hood thing in this case isn't because of not being able to see your face. We're not aloud to have hoods up and hats or anything of the nature of course for that reason. That is an entirely different situation. I understand that. Its simply that you cannot have a hood, even if it's a fitted shirt that happens to have a hood on it. They would make you take it off/change your shirt. Their excuse that they gave us specifically was because they thought someone would try to hide a gun or knife in their hood. I don't know why, either, being that that's not something that ever happened anywhere near here.
I've been yelled at for literally doing nothing because of these rules. Like, that I didn't IMMEDIATELY take my coat off when I got in the door in the winter, or when I got lost and accidentally went near (not into, just near) the eighth grade wing in the seventh grade or when a friend of mine got sent to the office for having gloves on in class without the teacher even asking her to take them off first. It also became a problem, mostly the issue with the age thing, due to some issues with classes we had because of construction. Gym and Art were at the middle school this year because of said construction. Art was on one end of the middle school and gym on the other. If you had art and gym in succession, then in between classes you would have to walk around the school and into a different door in order to get to the second class and would still be expected to be on time. You weren't aloud to use the hallways in the Middle School if you were a High School Student, even if you had classes there.
The rules are enforced rather eccentrically is all. I should've been clearer. I'm sorry. I realize there are reasons for these rules, and I realize they aren't the same as the chapstick issue. That's just ridiculous beyond all reason. They just peeve me a bit.
Oh and don't worry, I know about the silly-bands thing. My friend and I taught an art class for a day at an elementary school as volunteer work, and they were practically using them as currency. We watched them on the playground and there was a girl that had a massive plastic bag of them. It was ridiculous. All I could think of was "Those are colored rubber-bands! WHY!?" They're banned at all the schools now. It's also, I think, that kids in elementary school are at and age where they feel the need to collect things and are therefore more likely to get distracted by something like silly bands. When Highschoolers do it, they're just being dumb.
Im sorry my post sounded immature. Honestly, though. I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything. That's going to bother the hell out of me for days...
no subject
I'm sure that you probably have been yelled at for stupid reasons before - heck, even good teachers have bad moments, and it sucks to be caught on the end of a bad teacher's bad moment.
But whoever told you that you couldn't wear a hood because you might be hiding a gun or knife in it is... Well, that person was just plain wrong. Or maybe they were misinformed. Either way that's not the real reason that most schools ban hoodies.