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Metro schools may soon be allowed to opt out of SSA
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 1:20am
Metro school principals will soon have the option of opting out of standard school attire (SSA). Parents will know final decisions by the end of April, according to Ralph Thompson, assistant superintendent for student affairs for Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Thompson estimates that four to six of Metro’s high schools will choose to opt out. While schools haven’t yet started the process of opting out, district officials have said the history of SSA adoption indicates that interest in opting out may be shown by the Nashville School of the Arts and the academic magnet schools. Questions have also been raised about SSA at Middle College High, a high school which allows Metro students to attend class on the campus of Nashville State Community College.
Far fewer elementary and middle schools are expected by the district to opt out, according to Thompson. Thompson said he thinks all Metro elementary schools, and all but no more than two or three middle schools, will choose to keep SSA in place. Individual schools will be able to make their own modifications to the plan, and Thompson expects some of these changes will occur.
Thompson said MNPS wants principals to involve parents, students, and community leaders in opt-out decisions.
“What we have asked the principals to do is to include all stakeholders in and around their school communities, … and gather information so that this is not just an administrative decision,” Thompson said Tuesday.
Schools choosing to opt out will still have to follow MNPS’s pre-SSA dress code requirements, and will be asked by the district to submit their own dress code discipline plans. But if school principals choose to opt out and indicate that enough school stakeholders have been consulted, Thompson said the requests will most likely be approved.
The original SSA motion passed by the Board of Education enacted SSA for three years, with the stipulation that an opt-out policy for individual schools be enacted after two years. That two-year mark will be reached at the beginning of the upcoming school year.
For more information about MNPS’s SSA policy, visit mnps.org.
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Filed under: City News
And there was much rejoicing! yea!I can go back to teaching instead of being the fashion police.
Oh sure, but Andrew Jackson Elem has already decided that the Fashion Police are just too important at her school. God forbid my children should wear jeans to her school. Oh, the horrors! lol
Can't wait to see what Overton does...the principal has no interest in involving parents in anything and thinks they should stay out of the school altogether so I'm sure we'll never a word about it. It's a form of control so I'm sure since parents don't want it he'll stick with it.
Do you realize how many minutes a day our children have to spend just to ADHERE to the SSA? Our kids could be spending those hours learning instead. Wow, what a concept. Like a belt is going to prevent "sagging" in the first place. lol
carleydaleplease explain how many minutes your children have to spend a day to adhere to the SSA? How does it differ from getting dressed in some other way? I really want to know how this is a problem.Thank you.
My spouse teaches at a middle school in Davidson county. She was teaching there before the SSA was implemented. I think teachers can tell you better than anyone the impact the SSA has had on their abilty to teach our children. She says the decrease in dicipline problems has been noticable and she says the children are in a much better frame of mind to learn.
You should see the children LINE UP at DuPont each morning because they forgot their belts and such... it's hysterical. They're not in the classrooms, they're standing in a line...hey, every minute counts. Right? Sorry your wife has to teach. You have my sympathy. (trust me) ;-)
Your spouse isn't out where we are. End of story. And for the love of all things, do you really believe that a 5 year old's clothing was somehow magically impeding his ability to learn. Cooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmeeeee on. LOL
I know that everybody has an opinion but there is a certain way to express how you feel without putting people down. We are adults and suppose to lead by example. No wonder are children disrespect themselves and others. Yes, I agree there are some positive and negative results about the SSA but at least something was done to try to improve the schools. As parents we need to band together to figure out how we can get to the root of the problem concerning our children's schooling and environment. And to carleydale: you have made some valid points but can you please work with us to find some solutions?
Well from where i see it all, it has its good and bad points. Elementary-they look really presentable but if it is not implemented it takes time from teachers,students,secreataries,bookeepers etc, not to mention at the end of the day they have to turn them back in. Middle school-it's a joke because the students do not want to be in class anyway, if they did they would be better prepared. They need to start now getting prepared fpr high school. High school forget i, by the time they get there they are so full of themself that you cannot tell them anything no matter what some will do good things with their life and others will be really hard to get thru, and no matter how much you try they have the choice to make the right decisions and not try to put it off on teachers,parents,police etc. It's time we look at students for exactly what they want to become, no matter what we as parents or anybody else thinks this is what they must want for themselves. We the people can only provide for them but they have to want it as an option for their lives. We cannot live it for them.
I really don't understand what the big deal is about SSA, or why so many people are complaining about it. In my opinion, as a parent, SSA is SO much easier! It cuts down on the time it takes to get ready for school in the morning - the kid just grabs a polo and a pair of pants and puts them on. A belt? Why is it such a big deal?As parents, it is up to us to teach our children to follow the rules, even if we think the rules are ridiculous. We can teach them that rules can be changed, but the best way to do that is to follow them, and then work with the rulemakers to change them.
I concur with oldrockchick. I have a son in Metro schools, and SSA is SO much easier - five shirts, five pairs of pants, a belt . . . you're set for the week.And I've been on the teacher side before - the way kids dress CAN make a difference in how easy/hard it is to keep discipline in the classroom.I don't see a downside to SSA.
SSA is good for some schools. But it is a needless distraction from learning in others. Let each school decide. What may help at the elementary level may be a waste of time at an arts pr academic magnet. (What was not a problem before became a problem.) At my school, it just adds a layer of "us" against "them" that did not exist before SSA. I look forward to its end here and to the return of the clever T shirt and jeans.
And the Goth kids and their Parents rejoice.It seems a lot of this is happening because of perpetual resistance from the kids. That's right we will back off on rules because the inmates want to run the prison.
Don't make rules that the kids force you to take back.
I wonder if they are thinking about the low income families who bought clothes intending to pass them down to younger siblings, scoured the thrift stores for appropriate attire (that's not something you can leave up to the last minute), or stocked up at end of season sales for the next year. And about the children who will still fit into their end of the school year clothes at the beginning of the next but won't want to wear them because they are the only ones still doing so. What a burden to put on these families because of the school's indecisiveness. As a parent, I've also found SSA to be easier. I also appreciate that it shelters my child to some extent from the fact that many of her very young peers (from what I've observed on the weekends) dress like mini-whores.