<p>Around here if your sweatshirt isn’t from an SEC school, you will be looked upon with disdain anyway! :)</p>
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Is that really a team that brings something positive to your daughter’s life? Perhaps a team elsewhere (as was suggested above) might be a better fit. In any case, best of luck to you. Your story broke my heart.</p>
<p>My D’s school doesn’t have a policy and no one cares. Of course it’s an inner city school with only about a 46% graduation rate, so only a few athletes, IB kids and some others go to top colleges. My D wore a t-shirt from several schools that she visited, liked and liked the t-shirt. Others of her friends did the same thing or wore shirts of their siblings or boyfriends/girlfriends or that came from goodwill. No drama!</p>
<p>One other thought… The issue seems to be about supposedly “protecting” kids from feeling bad about differential status in terms of accomplishments and abilities.</p>
<p>How does this differ from when kids where T-shirts from expensive vacations? What about kids where their families cannot afford to travel very far? Should the school “forbid” kids from wearing their Cancun T-shirt because it will make the less wealthy families feel bad? When does this stop?</p>
<p>If a child has the ability to get into any college, feels proud of his/her accomplishment and excited about the school, he/she should feel entitled to wear a T-shirt from that school. How is wearing a T-shirt from an ivy that different from when a kid wears a T-shirt from a top ten football State U if that is where he is excited to attend?</p>
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<p>Then quite a lot of alums from my urban public magnet, others like it, and boarding/prep schools well into middle-aged and senior years have “bad style”. </p>
<p>It’s quite common for folks in my area to sometimes have more pride in their magnet or boarding/prep schools than even their elite colleges…sometimes even if it was a tippytop HYPSMC/SWAR type school. </p>
<p>This even shows up in professional settings as I’ve seen plenty of corporate type professionals…including executives, biglaw attorneys, and others wear ties, rings, and pins from their magnet/prep schools. </p>
<p>Oh well…some folks can never get over their high school angst derived from this type…even when they’re in their 20s…or older. That date and some older cousins are living proof of that. </p>
<p>My Middlebury grad HS buddy who refuses to attend our high school’s alum events even 15+ years out because of encounters with the “sore winners” contingent within our graduating class’ top 25% Ivy/peer elite admits/attendees is another. </p>
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<p>There was a Brown student in a Harvard summer class who recounted having a freshman roommate who bragged he was admitted with extreme low SAT scores because his family donated some money to the school. Was so obnoxious and entitled with everyone…including his parents that the summer classmate switched roommates as soon as his first semester ended.</p>
<p>I think making a big deal out of “not” wearing a t-shirt just makes it a bigger deal than it ought to be, frankly.</p>
<p>As for you daughter, GFG, I wonder if that isn’t a title IX violation. Unless the school can prove they have done this to a boy, I’m not sure they are allowed to treat girls differently.</p>
<p>Regardless, what is wrong with that coach? Honestly, can you imagine if a calc teacher told his/her best student, “I’m going to doc you fifty points at the start of the next few tests, so you stop ruining the curve?” </p>
<p>It gets old.</p>
<p>Maybe if there weren’t ED and EA decisions, this wouldn’t be so much an issue. The school may not want the lucky ED/EA kids wearing “in your face” HYPS gear from mid Dec thru April 30th???</p>
<p>I also suspect that the decision may have come after a administrator’s kid didn’t get a prized acceptance, so the sensitivity issue hit too close to home.</p>
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<p>I’ve never known this either. In fact there is a saying in track that there is no such thing as a racist track coach, because coaches will always want to run the fastest athletes he has available regardless of their race or anything else.</p>
<p>TheGFG - there is a bright side to your daughter’s treatment by the coach. Her running career may be better and more successful in the long run. I’ve seen too many high school coaches run their star athlete into the ground - entering them in event after event to rack up points in the meets. The result is often the star often gets injured and/or burned out and can no longer compete at all. Through over-racing the coach kills the goose laying the golden eggs, so to speak. </p>
<p>This is exactly what happened to my track star and state champ nephew. The coach would run him in four or five events every meet, winning them all. His senior year he came down with bad over-use injuries to his legs and never really recovered. His once-promising college track career never amounted to much - just a few mediocre college performances (slower than his HS times) interspersed among many chronic injury lay-offs.</p>
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<p>That’s very unlikely in the NYC public magnets…especially the one I attended. In their cases…I’m betting the policy came down from the NYC board of ed bureaucrats…wouldn’t be the first time.</p>
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There is no NYC board of education anymore, and there is no such policy set forth in the NYC public schools across the board. Individual schools are entitled to make such rules.</p>
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<p>Oh puh-leeze!</p>
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<p>Ok…so while the NYC Board of Ed may not exist in the same form it did when I attended HS, we still have a bureaucracy performing their functions considering several friends and a neighbor work there and they still seem to pass schoolwide policies…such as implementing and enforcing the systemwide cell phone ban on students which seems to have parents and some teachers mainly angry with Mayor Bloomberg…not their school admins.</p>
<p>“if the policy is applied across the board, I see nothing wrong in guiding young people in having some sensitivity for the feelings of others. It’s a form of good manners.”</p>
<p>I agree. The prep schools we’re talking about hype their culture/community/values out the wazoo. It’s a huge part of the brand they are selling. They often require the students to conform to a dress code or wear uniforms in order to foster the environment they want to create. Some require chapel or community service. A prep school education is partly about imparting a sense of good taste and decorum. This is a small part of that, so it doesn’t bother me.</p>
<p>Just as an example, my prep school (a rough equivalent of Calhoun) required every student who gave a big party to invite the whole class. There were no birthday parties where most of the class was invited except for a disfavored few. No doubt, that is a heavy restriction on the personal social decisions that the families at the school make in their free time. But that’s what they signed up for. There were competitor schools in the market with a different ethos.</p>
<p>“The issue seems to be about supposedly “protecting” kids from feeling bad about differential status in terms of accomplishments and abilities.”</p>
<p>Well, to the extent that this is about protecting “losers” as well as educating “winners,” it gives the losers a little more time to get there. They’re kids. They surely know where everyone got in even without the sweatshirts, and the sweatshirts will all come out in May.</p>
<p>This thread is hilarious. I salute you all.</p>
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Yes they do, but this is not one of them. </p>
<p>As far as some of the across the board rules, some are completely ignored at individual schools. For example, the cell phone ban is not enforced in most Staten Island middle and high schools. The administrators of the individual schools disagree with it and quietly ignore it.</p>
<p>I wish they never announced any awards at graduation. Ribbons or tassels are enough. Takes far too long and just put it in the program or whatever.</p>
<p>As for the shirts, the kids themselves had a way of dissing those that were too in your face with their acceptances. There was a bit of self imposed decorum, at least while the hurt was still raw. </p>
<p>It would like if the ops daughter ran over and waved her ribbon in the teammates faces at the moment of the lose. Don’t see that happening.</p>
<p>It’s sad parents haven’t taught the kids that how to behave well in winning and doingnwell. Doing well should be enough of a prize. Getting applause each and every time is unnessesary. </p>
<p>I think manners in victory is as valuable a lesson to teach as manners in defeat.</p>
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<p>I tend to be quite skeptical of this for two reasons:</p>
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<li>Several current members of my high school’s current administration were completely the opposite of the “protect the feelings of those who aren’t top dog”. They wouldn’t be the types to enforce this policy unless it was forced on them by a more powerful entity…such as the current equivalent of the school bureaucracy.<br></li>
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<p>And the parents association isn’t a factor considering most current parents were like the ones I recalled from my days…supportive of the winner take all to extremes environment. As far as they were concerned…if you didn’t want the sink or swim cutthroat environment…you’re looking at the wrong school. </p>
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<li>That bureaucracy still employs many bureaucrats who worked for the very NYC Board of Ed which attempted to micromanage the administration of the NYC public magnet high school’s in the past…most recent attempt I know of was around 15+ years ago.<br></li>
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<p>That may be true, but there still seems to be much anger on that issue not only from the parents…but also teachers. And it all seems to be directed at Mayor Bloomberg and his bureaucracy.</p>
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<p>While I agree that such manners are important for winners and losers, there’s a gulf of difference between imparting such lessons and attempting to enforce a variation of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” environment where no one can have pride in their competitive achievements.</p>
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You can be as skeptical as you would like. You can also provide as many reasons or stories as you would like. There is no such system-wide rule in the New York City public school system.</p>
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As I’ve told you before, 15 years is a very, very long time.</p>
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<p>I didn’t mean to say that it was a systemwide rule. However, they have had a history of attempting to make boneheaded policies or implementing micromanagement methods specifically targeting the NYC Specialized High Schools.</p>
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Now THAT is true. The current principal of one of the specialized high schools is a very close friend of mine and I could tell you stories.</p>