OPINION: Vague school rules leave students vulnerable to stereotyping
By Zach Bergevin,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–
Teachers at Davis High range from lenient and relaxed to excessively strict with respect to enforcing classroom rules and discipline. A breach of school policy in one class may result in vastly different consequences than if the same offense was committed in another room.
This variance in discipline prompted a closer inspection of the school planner and its formal policy when responding to in-school offenses. It is clear that we must adopt more explicit guidelines when dealing with a breach of rules. When rules are vague, the school exposes itself to accusations of bias and stereotyping based upon a number of factors such as grade, gender or ethnicity. In addition, the students carry the risk of being potential victims of the profiling based on one of these attributes.
Let’s examine a few of the more egregious examples of ambiguous rules on pages 10 to 13 of the 2017-2018 DHS planner. The planner separates offenses into seven categories, or “levels” of offenses. In the first level of offenses, one of the outlawed acts includes “behavior which a reasonable person would relieve [sic] insults and/or degrades a person.”
In this excerpt, administration uses the term “reasonable” without proper context; what a random student or mature teacher or adult views as insulting or degrading is widely different. When a student wears revealing clothing to school, is that degrading to him or herself if he or she is choosing to do so? And if so, is the proper punishment, as the planner states, a possible detention or written apology to staff, classes, or other students? Rules like this one are often why inequities between boys and girls are enlarged with respect to being dress cut; what teachers view on male students to be insulting and what is degrading on females may be different.
In the second level of offenses, we see that “writing/discussion or drawing [sic] on school property” is against policy. Besides the (hopefully) obvious spelling error of drawing, I have seen this rule be unfairly enforced multiple times across campus. Students are generally not allowed to use chalk or marker to write messages in public bathrooms and halls whether they are positive or not, but there have been cases where exemptions have been made for Kindness Week and other events, but only for specific students. Who can and cannot authorize positive public graffiti?
With respect to authorization, we may look at level three offenses when the planner states that “unauthorized photographing, audio and/or visual recording” is illegal. Who must authorize this photography and why can various media groups on campus remove students from instructional periods when the teachers don’t mind when some of the same teachers refuse to allow students to photograph the homework problems on the whiteboard because of a cell-phone policy? There are conflicting policies on the teacher-to-teacher level and administrative levels.
When we return to level 1 offenses, it is stated that “wearing clothes inappropriate for school” is strictly prohibited and references the District Gang Policy. On Feb. 9, members of the Black Student Union wore bandanas in protest of the school dress code because of inequity in consequences between students-of-color and other students. The BSU had noticed that students wearing white and blue bandanas were often not punished, but people-of-color had policy enforced upon them. When, as the planner states, the rules are simply “guidelines for responsive discipline in secondary schools,” instead of concrete establishment of what is and is not approved, racial or gender stereotyping is often an unfortunate byproduct.
As long as a few minor edits to the planner’s discipline section are made and closer scrutiny is provided as to how the policy is equally enforced upon students of various social groups, ethnicities and grades, administration can mitigate both the risk of being perceived as prejudiced and of targeting groups of students unfairly.
