Oregon School Bans Hugs

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...6/152918.shtml

Oregon School Bans Hugs

A 14-year-old girl received detention over a lingering hug she gave her boyfriend at school, infuriating her mother and putting school officials on the defensive.

School officials said they had warned Cazz Altomare that lingering hugging was unacceptable, but she continued to disobey the rule when she received the detention earlier this year.

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Rules at Sky View Middle School in Bend permit "quick hello and goodbye hugs," but administrators said some students have been taking advantage of it.
"It's not like we are the hug Nazis," Laurie Gould, spokeswoman for the Bend-La Pine School District, said Monday. "Kids hug, they hug hello and they hug goodbye, but if you take it farther, you make people uncomfortable."

Cazz got detention after giving her boyfriend a protracted hug in the hallway at Sky View Middle School in Bend.

Her mother, Leslee Swanson, was infuriated by the punishment. When she went to pick her daughter up from detention, she gave her a good, hard hug.

"I'm trying to understand what's wrong with a hug," Swanson, 42, said in a story Sunday in The Bulletin of Bend. People should not "blindly accept these fundamental rights being taken away from them," she said.

Gould said "usually kids don't get detention just for hugging."

All middle schools in the Bend-La Pine district restrict hugging to some degree, as well as hand-holding and some other forms of physical affection.

"Really, all we're trying to do is create an environment that's focused on learning, and learning proper manners is part of that," said Dave Haack, the principal of Cascade Middle School, also in Bend.

Students only end up with detention after repeated warnings earlier this year, he said.

Outside Pilot Butte Middle School on a recent lunch break, two seventh-grade girls said they disagreed with the policies.

"I think we should be able to hold hands or hug at least," said Annie Wilson, 12. "Because it's not doing anything bad."

? 2005 The Associated Press

[39mto39g]

The school was trying to make a compromise, A hello or good by hug is ok but a prolonged hug is not, Whats so hard to understand.
If I were the principle I would advise the school that because some people can't follow the rules there are going to be new rules, No touching what so ever. Now go learn something.

Ron

[Jerry D]

And if little Mary Ann falls and scrapes her knee you as a teacher better not hold/hug her till she stops crying that would be breaking the rules ,just give her a band-aide and tell her to shut up instead of the age old custom of a comforting hug. Just another point of view when rules can't be bent because of zero tolerance! Sometimes common sense gets thrown out with the baby's bath water.

[SparrowHawk62]

Now Love and Compassion are punishable offences? Just what is the message we are passing on to the next generation??

[QM3steve]

I recall a time I gave a girl a little extra in the hall once. My father was a science teacher in the school and caught me. He yelled "HEY! There's a time and a place!" I agree. He was right. There is a time and place for that kind of stuff. School is for learning. I see no reason not to put a limit on hugging but anything past that could be uncomfortable to others.

[savage grace]

say i'd like to put my 2 cents in if i may. i have a great nephew who was punished for leaving a line to pick a flower. i suppose we're all better off pickin ' our nose

[Packo]

I don't know about the schools y'all went to but we were never allowed outward signs of affection, i.e. kissing, holding hands, and prolonged hugging. I think there is a big difference between the hugs a teacher may give someone who is hurt and hormone ravaged school kids. The school allows quick hello and goodbye hugs. Those are the rules and this kid obviously doesn't follow them for this was not her first offense. But I guess others believe that 12 year olds should make the rules and parents are there to make sure they back up their kids when ever they break the the ones the school has made. Just one of the many reasons our government schools have gone from #1 in the world to the dumper. I was not only a student at one time but a teacher. In the time I went from student to teacher I saw the affects of dropping standards such as these, and chose to get out. I have spent the last 13 years teaching at a local University part time. Believe it or not, I have rules for my classroom and have no problem bouncing out anyone that choses to break them. The blessing is that the administration backs me up. Being that it's college level......I have no dress code for co-eds.

Prof Pack

[revwardoc]

I went through 12 years of parochial schools. Try to show open affection to the opposite sex in that environment! Even at our school dances, we had nuns as caperones. At one dance I was movin' on the floor with a sweet lovely, a slow number, when I felt an iron hand on my shoulder then heard Sr. Mary St. Anthony say, "Leave some room for the Holy Spirit!" Without thinking I answered, "Let him get his own date!" The next thing I knew I was being dragged by the ear, tossed out into the snow, and advised to "Cool off out there for awhile!"

Tough broads, those nuns!

[Packo]

ROTFLMAO!

Pack