boy, there sure are a bunch of right-wing-enforce-my-views-upon-you type of people in here!
instead of bashing his piercings you should be asking him wtf happened to his sideburns?
I dont think people consider me a young adult anymore, 28, married, 1.5 kids. i taught middle school and high school for a few years. believe me, this amount of piercing is BY FAR the norm out here. i can't believe the school has "banned" them. Heck, take tour of Hollywood HS and youll see freaks that'll scare the sh*t out of you. While i think these are a lame cry for attention and extremely repulsive i do not feel that they should not be allowed to wear them. If his having home depot hardware in his face distracts you so much that you can't focus on your work then come see me because i have special education assessments i can run on you to see if you have any attention deficits.
while i think he was wrong in violating the school's policy i think they are wrong in placing him in isolation throughout the day; especially if it is everyday until he pays a contractor to remove them. i know the some of inside policies of education and it is against the law to keep a student out of the classroom for specific amounts of time. if this were to carry on too long they find themselves in hot water. For the guy who knows this kid, you should contact him and tell him he should contact the ACLU. i know, i know, many of you will say they are a bunch of liberal commie bastards, and i myself am not fond of 1/2 of their pursuits BUT 1/2 of them i do appreciate. w/out them, there would be some seriously f'ed up sh*t in this country still going on.
how about this hypo (as my professors call it): what if this kid would have shown up with no piercings and tattoos on his neck and all over his arms. wouldnt that be similar? what if that was against the rules? would they keep in isolation until he had them removed? i have had plenty of students in my high school classes show up with disgusting gang tats on their necks and even on their stupid shaved heads. what can we do? nothing. theirs tons of them.
as far as this kid getting his "jewelry" ripped out, this isnt even a problem in our schools because there is a zero tolerance for fighting. students get kicked out of school for the FIRST fight. fights are pretty rare now because no one wants to get up an hour or two earlier to go to school waaay across town to another school with people they dont really know. (especially if theyre gangbangers).
i am really suprised that this is even an issue in a school anywhere in the US. these days schools are so f'ed up and allow practically anything.
youre probably thinking im just another liberal californian but im actually rather conservative. I even joined a conservative society at school. i personally loathe body piercings other than ears and tongue (i even dont like belly) but i really dont care if someone else wants to make themselves look funny. If he has trouble finding a job, and he might (definitely easier to find one without) i just say that makes less competition for my kids.
Most companies frown on this sort of thing. even colored hair. as for computer people, theyre usually looked at as creative expressive people who are desperately needed. i had a friend in a very conservative insurance company show up to work in a flannel, sweats, and unshaven beard but he was the top guy in IT so nobody cared. i worked with a girl in a conservative insurance company who died her hair that God-awful red dye color, still showing her brown hair, and people who had been working there forever said she would never get promoted looking like that, plus she had a ring in her eyebrow. thats just the way it works. there are always exceptions but in the professional business world, this is the majority.
while i think he violated the school rule and i think a one day suspension plus after-school detentions would be appropriate, i certainly dont think it was appropriate for the school to treat him as a leper and put him in quarantine. try not to think of it as some kid that was like a kid in your high school but try to think of what if your kid was being treated like this. yeah, i wouldnt let my kid wear this bs either but what if they treated your own child like this for something else, something you felt was right.
I know plenty of people who worked in HS to help their single mothers help pay the rent and put food in the mouths of their younger siblings, better than welfare right?
in cases like these, there are plenty of lawyers who love to take the case Pro Bono. look at all the free publicity. who do you think probably contacted the media about this in the first place? definitely not the school, they would prefer to keep cr*p like this under wraps as much as possible.
this reminds me of a great movie line. Pulp Fiction "Is Trudy the one with all the sh*t in her face?"..."No, that's Angela, my wife."
