The 6 Dumbest Things Schools Are Doing in the Name of Safety

6 Forcing Students to Wear Electronic Tracking Devices

You know what's hard about running the school? Keeping track of all those freaking kids, most of whom don't even want to be there. Hell, look at what Mr. Rooney went through with Ferris Bueller.

With that in mind, two Houston, Texas, area schools started handing out radio frequency identification tracking tags to the students (at a district cost of $150,000) in the attempt to track the kids' movements on campus. The idea is to make it easier for administrators to make sure the students go to class (remember, state funding is tied to attendance).

Naturally, the technology has some flaws. For one, the badges can be taken off or handed to another pupil, allowing the students to do whatever they want anyway.

For another, the system kind of straddles the line between overbearing and pointless, since the badges are of no help if, say, a student gets abducted or runs away (they only work within 100 feet of the building). So that's going to lead to some awkward conversations.

Administrator: Hello, Mrs. Smith. We're calling to let you know that our tracking system indicates your son left the building today.

Mrs. Smith: OK, so where the hell is he now?

Administrator: ...

Then there are the privacy issues that RFID technology usually brings to the table, along with parents concerned that the system where the identification data is stored could be hacked. And of course, there's the whole thing with training kids to get used to being electronically tracked at every moment of the day ...

Hey, and why stop here? If schools are willing to use electronic tracking, why not make truant kids wear ankle bracelets, like just-released felons? Oh, wait, a school in San Antonio is already doing that.

5 Banning All Photography

We don't want to joke about pedophilia, or belittle all of the parents who spend time worrying about it. But there is a line between precaution and mindless panic.

For instance, to make sure all students are safe from the dangers of the world's online child porn mongers, a school in England has done the only logical thing they could think of -- ban everyone from taking any pictures of the students, ever. This ban applies to parents, other students, caretakers, friends, relatives ... basically all humans who attend any school events on or off campus, including school plays, sporting events and field trips.

So what's the big deal? First off, they're basically stripping away the possibility of capturing many of the valuable Kodak moments that happen in a child's formative years (the ones they'll want to show their own children so they can know what life was like before the Great Nano-Zombie Plague).

But more importantly, they're missing a great opportunity to actually do their jobs -- teaching children something meaningful that they can apply to the real world. Like, for instance, what to look out for when it comes to real-world creeps, other than "everyone who owns a camera."

Also, either there is a real misunderstanding of how child porn works, or the school grossly overestimates the sexiness of its children. If allowing children to be photographed playing soccer or doing a drama club performance of Fiddler on the Roof is enough to turn on pedophiles, then we probably just have to accept that fact. The next step is just throwing a tarp over the students any time they're in public for fear that someone nearby is getting aroused.

4 Absolutely NO Touching!

Middle school is a tough time for most students. On top of all their physical changes, they have raging hormones that convince them that all boys want to be hit as hard as possible, and all girls, no matter how much they resist or how fast they run away, are longing for that inappropriate touch.

To make sure nobody gets out of line and all students are safe, Fairfax Middle School in Virginia decided to start teaching students how to behave properly right when they walk in the door that first day. Just kidding! That wouldn't be fun for us at all. Instead, they seemed to take the easy way out and said, "Screw it -- no touching, ever."

That's right -- in 2007, they banned any and all physical contact because the faculty believes students are incapable of understanding that there is a difference between a congratulatory high-five between two friends and a punch to the face.

This ban isn't just enforced in the classroom. Students are forbidden to touch each other while at lunch, in the hallway or at any other time during school hours.

The principal defended the ban, saying she's seen too many incidents of students playing bloody knuckles -- a game that involves two idiots slamming their knuckles together as hard as they can. This seems to imply that all touching is a slippery slope that always ends in slapstick fist-smashing.

The worst part is that FMS isn't the only school taking such extreme measures; these kinds of over-the-top precautions are showing up more often now that more school administrators have taken a ride on the crazy train (where they were apparently also groped and beaten). East Shore Middle School in Connecticut adopted the same policy in 2009. This one came about after a kick to the groin sent a student to the hospital.

So, instead of banning groin kicks (which we suspect were already against the rules), East Shore banned hugging, high-fiving and shaking hands on school grounds. Students caught high-fiving a classmate could receive detention, a suspension or even expulsion.

Some students decided to fight back by duct taping their arms to their sides as a form of protest. Which also misses the point, since their legs would still be free for groin kicking. Damn, even their acts of defiance don't make sense.

3 Banning All Outside Food

Ask a bunch of kids what their favorite part of the school day is and almost all of them will either say lunch or recess. Many schools have already ruined recess by banning tag and other "contact sports," so naturally the next step is to ruin lunch. Some schools manage to do this while providing a semi-valid reason like allergies or kids bringing items purchased from an erotic bakery, but one Chicago school decided they must ban all food brought from home to protect students from their own (or in most cases, their parents') bad decisions.

The principal of Little Village Academy in Chicago said she was tired of seeing kids bring soda and "flaming hot chips" on field trips. Instead of realizing that students don't go on field trips every day and probably don't always eat this way, she decided to do what any rational school administrator would do -- ban all food.

No, not really. But she did decide to ban all food brought from home, which is kind of the same thing for those students who realize that school cafeteria food is one step above what you get in a hospital. She did say she makes exceptions for students with allergies, but there doesn't seem to be much hope for students unfortunate enough to have healthy immune systems.

This ban has actually been in effect for six years, so why is this just now making the news? It might have something to do with the fact that the school recently changed their lunch menu to add healthier (read: more disgusting) food. However, they admit that they've seen a dropoff in what they call "meal participation" this year, as students would rather go hungry than eat the horror that has been set before them.

2 Forcing Students to Wear Prison Jumpsuits for Dress Code Violations

Dress codes arguably have a necessary purpose in schools, particularly in terms of trying to lessen distractions in a classroom or solve issues with kids stealing from other kids. However, figuring out how to enforce a dress code can be a difficult; after all, kids are going to be kids, and the more you try to enforce it, the more they want to push the envelope. "You said I had to wear pants, you didn't say they couldn't be assless."

Therefore, a school in, yet again, Texas, decided to try a new tactic: make a public example of the students who violate the dress code. How? By making them wear prison jumpsuits.

And what, exactly, constitutes a violation of the dress code at Gonzales High School? The obvious stuff, like wearing clothes that expose underwear. But how about cargo pants, baggy pants or T-shirts? In other words, if you look like a normal member of the community, you could be violating the school dress code and will be forced to dress like an inmate. No more dress code distractions in class now!

Of course, this whole system means that the students would have to experience some shame and ridicule wearing the jumpsuits for it to be effective ... which is the exact opposite of what happened. According to one student, "I talked to some of my friends about it and they said they are not going to obey the dress code just so they can wear the jumpsuit."

1 Deterring Bad Behavior by Issuing Stiff Fines

Maybe your 10-year-old kid decides one day it would be funny if he tossed some spit wads at the kid in the front row of the classroom, or to stuff a classmate into a locker. Of course, your kid may get caught and face a reprimand. Maybe he would have to spend some time in detention. Maybe he'd have to see the principal. Or maybe he'd have to pay a $500 fine.

Wait, what?

Schools in, yes, Texas, and other areas of the country have taken to having campus police write tickets to students for everything ranging from creating disturbances in class to cursing and fighting.

Now, this might make some kind of sense if most of the between 4,000 and 6,000 students who were ticketed since 2005 were high schoolers. After all, high school kids are almost adults, and the bad stuff they do is probably more along the lines of fighting and vandalism than making faces at a teacher. But that isn't the case. Many of the tickets are being written for elementary school kids, such as the 92 criminal citations given to 10-year-olds in Dallas in 2006 and 2007. Several districts ticketed kids as young as 6.

Since the police are writing the tickets, the schools are out of the loop. That's right: Your 10-year-old kid gets a ticket, he gets to go to court and talk to a judge about why he was swearing. Between court costs and having to take time off work to drive the juvenile delinquents down to the court house to explain why they were being ... er ... kids, it's costing parents a lot more than the fines, even if some of those are commuted to community service.

In one documented case, a teenager was forced to pay $637 for the ticket and court costs, and at least one other parent wound up paying around $1,500 in tickets.

But hey, at least it works, right? Eh, not really. Houston ISD's Assistant Police Chief Victor Mitchell notes, "Some kids, it doesn't even faze them. It's just a piece of paper. Some kids are concerned because they know their parents are going to be concerned. But some kids have become immune to it."

Oh, they'll be concerned once we starting going with jail time for this shit.

For more modern ideas that were here before us, check out 11 Modern Technologies That Are Way Older Than You Think and 6 Depraved Sexual Fetishes That Are Older Than You Think.