Exact quotes from my school agenda.

[spinal_compression]

Originally Posted by devonin

Um, nothing that Spinal has said has included anything that would remotely be grounds for a lawsuit.

Those rules are, unfortunately for her, at the discretion of teachers persuant to the approval of the VP/Principal. About the only way you could get around such a thing with regards to your hairstyle, would be to get something in writing from the principal that says what you've done is okay, and you can just shove that in the face of any teacher who tries to give you grief.

On the surface this rule seems like is has prmarily to do with the public image of the school. Given that you're in the GTA and in a Catholic school, I assume a few other things: Namely that you have tighter security than most ontarian schools viz weapons, drugs etc and that you have uniforms.

Those two assumptions (if true) suggest that the administration probably takes the public image of the school quite seriously, and in order to continue to secure funding from parents and the board and the government, feel they have a certain austere image to maintain. This lends itself therefore to the rules against "excessive" ornamentation. If you've got uniforms, that already takes care of -most- of the image issue, but kids will therefore move all of their creativity and independant expression to accessories and hair, so there are rules in place to limit that going too over the top.

We had a vice principal come to work at our school having previously worked at a school smack in a bad area of Toronto, and she took every rule substantially more seriously than anyone else in our administration. Within two weeks my school (which had in 4 years had 1 fight total) sprouted a half dozen security cameras, spot locker searches, a much increased frequency of visits from drug dogs and a host of other things which were completely ridiculous for a small town catholic school.

Unfortunately, it is the nature of the seperate school board that it can make and enforce its own rules, answerable really only to a given PTA and Board of Directors.

So what you ought to do, if you really feel that the rule is being enforced unfairly, and that people are being mistreated, is gather up some evidence (Like, take pictures of the hair and jewelry people are wearing that get them in trouble that you think shouldn't get them in trouble) and actually make a request to appear in front of the board (And there will be board meetings at -least- monthly probably somewhere near enough that you can get to) and just spell out your issue.

Tell them that the rules are being enforced unequally. Some teachers are allowing what others are forbidding, with no real reason to do so. Some things that should be acceptable aren't, some things that shouldn't be are, and the students in general feel as though their rights are being trampled because there are no clear guidelines.

Make a few suggestions to expand what exactly constitutes excessive or extreme. With regards to hair dying, volunteer that dying it non-human colours (blue, purple, green etc) can count as excessive as long as any and all natural colours become allowed etc. Do the same for various accessories.

Point out to them that the more complete the guidelines, the less people will have to get in trouble because there is a disagreement between the student and teacher, or even between one teacher and another, as to what does or doesn't follow the rules.

Basically, the more complete you make your case, the more the board is going to agree with you, and you can get what you want without looking like anything other than a concerned student.

This is exactly what I was looking for.

There is a meeting in two weeks. I'm hoping that either myself or the student council will present this case to them.

I'm not fighting for rules to be disregarded. I'm fighting for a base upon which we make our rules. Allowing everyone to be treated fairly.

We had a vice principal come to work at our school having previously worked at a school smack in a bad area of Toronto

Jane? Malvern?