[BigV]

Which brings us inevitably to here:

Tigger socks land girl in detention, school in court

A California school district is being sued over its decision to punish a a seventh-grader for wearing socks with pictures of Tigger, a Winnie-the-Pooh character, on the first day of classes.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Toni Kay Scott showed up at Redwood Middle School in "a denim skirt, a brown shirt with a pink border, and long socks with pictures of Tigger."

This violated the school's dress code, which requires certain colors or fabrics and bans clothing with words, photos or symbols.

The Chronicle, quoting from the lawsuit, says the 14-year-old "was escorted to the principal's office by a uniformed police officer and, along with two of her schoolmates, was sent to an in-school suspension program called Students With Attitude Problems."

The ACLU says her younger sister, a sixth-grader named Sydni, was sent to the principal's office for wearing shirts emblazoned with pro-Christian and anti-drug messages.

“I agree; no midriffs, mini-skirts or cleavage," the girls' mother says in a statement from the local ACLU. "School is a place to learn. But anything above that should be my call as a parent. Pink socks and two-tones are not a crime. That’s just nitpicking.”

The school district, in a letter to parents, has defended the policy as a reasonable response to fights at the school. "They said they believed the policy had a hand in reducing confrontations among students and raising test scores," The Napa Valley Register reports.

Update at 10:19 a.m. ET: Sorry. We linked to the wrong "Redwood Middle School" in our original post. Here's part of the dress code at the Napa Valley school:

• All clothes will be plain (no pictures, patterns, stripes or logos of any size or kind) and must fit appropriately.
• COLORS – SOLID COLORS ONLY - Acceptable colors are blue, white, green, yellow, khaki, gray, brown and black for all apparel including jackets (students are encouraged to also not dress in the same color i.e. all black or all blue). School colors apply to all items of clothing or accessories including shoes, shoelaces, socks, belts, scarves, mufflers, hair ties, etc.
• FABRICS – No jeans, denim, denim-looking, sweat pants, sports-nylon or fleece material may be worn. All pants, shorts, skirts or dresses must be cotton twill, chino or corduroy.

This is the right result? This is the example we want to our children to learn from? Conformity good, Winnie the freakin Pooh evil? Come ON!

I would rather have my children learn critical thinking and judgement skills, not Garranimals tag matching.

There are already rules and procedures to deal with disruptions. Creating a new category of disruption called "religious dress" positively invites conflict, competing opinions about what constitutes "religious dress", and enmity among the members of the community of learning--none of which contributes to learning.

If you can't do your job at maintaining order in the classroom because someone's wearing some special clothes, you have a problem. But the problem isn't about the clothes, it's about the leadership in the class and in the school. Having another "law" to whack people with won't confer respect or establish order. Those come from the teachers, not from the legislators.