Principals freaked out by students' dance, dress

George Bush is half black, look at his Mother.

I find it most amusing that you include "*****" in the same sentence with
"Christian Moral Values". Don't you know that Jesus was a black man? Tsk
Tsk.

And while we're on the subject, I highly doubt you would have the chutzpah
to call anyone a ***** to their face, you ignorant punk-*****.

Jess
"biniohas" <biniohas@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1ff71b64.0411281530.caacd95@posting.google.com...

Principals freaked out by students' dance, dress

BY DAHLEEN GLANTON

Chicago Tribune

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. - (KRT) - Gaoda McFadden still wonders what all
the fuss is about. The way the 16-year-old sees it, the principal
overreacted by ending his school's homecoming party early because kids
were dancing, well, the way kids dance.

Like many of his friends at Stephenson High School, McFadden sees
nothing wrong with bumping and grinding on the dance floor or being
sandwiched between two girls with their hips gyrating against him.
After all, he said, you can turn on MTV or Black Entertainment
Television and see it all day.

"It wasn't at all like what they tried to say. It was juicy," said
McFadden, a junior who was present last month when Principal Morcease
Beasley abruptly ended the party because of what he called
"disgraceful dancing." In teenager talk, "juicy" means exciting.

In an era when sexy music videos and scantily clad pop stars set the
standard for many young people, parents and educators across the
country are waging what appears to be an uphill battle over values.

Discord over lewd dancing and dress is hardly new, but the goalposts
for indecency have shifted radically in recent times. School officials
find themselves trying to ban students from sporting gold teeth like
rappers and from "freaking," or dancing in ways that explicitly
imitate sex. It is a moral challenge in suburban and rural areas where
values, as suggested by the 2004 presidential election, have become
one of the top issues among millions of Americans.

While each generation pushes the limits, some parents feel that pop
culture, fueled by the Internet, Hollywood and cable television, has
prodded teenagers further across the line of decency than ever
imagined in the 1950s when some wanted to ban Elvis.

These days, some schools are banning certain kinds of dance moves - or
canceling dances altogether. Educators are setting strict dress codes
as early as elementary school, forbidding girls from wearing
skin-bearing outfits such as low-rider jeans, thong underwear and
midriff tops and banning attire for boys such as oversized T-shirts
and pants that sag, often exposing their backside.

Sandra McGary-Ervin, principal of Sandtown Middle School in Atlanta,
said such hip-hop attire, for example, is not only distracting to
learning but is potentially dangerous.

"If we were in a crisis and the children had to get out of the
building, they couldn't get out quick enough because their pants would
trip them up," McGary-Ervin said.

About half of all teenagers between 15 and 19 are sexually active,
according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, though statistics show a decline in teenage pregnancy in
recent years. Still, parents and educators are alarmed by the sexual
content in pop culture and its influence on young people.

Some, however, say modern critics of teen dancing and attire are the
equivalent of those in the 1950s who wanted to stop Elvis from shaking
his hips.

Charles Haynes disagrees. The senior scholar at the First Amendment
Center, an Arlington, Va.-based center that works to protect First
Amendment freedoms, said:

"This is a lot different than the `50s. There are now dances with a
lot of body contact in ways that imitate sexual practice. Some schools
are teaching abstinence, and if they are trying to send the message
that sexual activity is something to be taken seriously and that there
are emotional and medical implications for young people who engage in
it, then they must do something."

Some schools are teaching courses in "character education," Haynes
added, and to teach teenagers "about moral issues and character issues
in a very powerful way. It is a movement in education that is
spreading across the country."

Like many principals, McGary-Ervin has set a dress code at her school.
Each morning, she stands at the school's entrance and monitors what
the students are wearing: If boys don't have a belt on, she gives them
one. If a girl's skirt doesn't reach her fingertips when she extends
her arms down her legs, she has to go home and change. Continual
violations lead to more serious consequences, including expulsion.

Several school districts have banned "Britney Spears-like" clothing
and require students to cover their stomachs and backs and not show
their underwear. Others have no district-wide dress code, but allow
individual schools to set standards.

Some officials have tried more drastic measures. A Louisiana
legislator unsuccessfully this year tried to get a bill passed as part
of the state's obscenity law that would have made it illegal for
anyone, not just young people, to wear below-the-waist pants.

School officials in Merrillville, Ind., near Chicago banned pink
clothing and accessories for middle school and high school students,
fearing that gangs had adopted the color. Though there was no evidence
of gang activity in the district, officials said they had noticed many
students wearing pink, so they issued the ban as a precaution.

In Augusta, Ga., high school students cannot wear large belts, sagging
pants or removable gold or platinum bridges that cover most of their
front teeth - a style popular with rappers.

"We have things, such as gangs, that spill over into the school, so we
have to deal with it," said Richmond County Schools spokeswoman
Mechelle Jordan. Getting youngsters to follow rules prepares them for
the workforce, too, Jordan added.

One of the biggest challenges school officials have dealt with in
recent years is the sexually explicit dancing known as "freaking,"
where groups of teens pack together on the floor and perform simulated
sexual moves. Problems have surfaced in numerous cities, including
Anchorage; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Palo Alto, Calif.; and Norristown, Pa.

The school district in Oceanside, Calif., near San Diego won't allow
songs that have obscene or sexually demeaning lyrics to be played at
school functions.

Some principals have eliminated school dances. In some schools,
chaperones walk around with flashlights to make sure the dancing does
not go too far. Still, when the dance has ended and the lights come
on, some principals say, they have found condoms and underwear on the
floor.

A committee of parents, teachers and students at Stephenson High
School in Stone Mountain, an affluent town on the outskirts of
Atlanta, are devising a policy on the kind of dances that can be done
and music that can be played at school events. The group, which also
will define what students can wear to prom or homecoming dances, was
formed after principal Beasley said he had tried for three years to
get students to conform.

"The student dancing is immoral and reflective of much that is wrong
within our society and the base values that are often communicated
through our media and that significantly contribute to many of our
society's problems," Beasley, who also is a minister, said in an
e-mail to parents.

Murray Forman, a professor of communication studies at Northeastern
University in Boston, said young people are affected because they are
exposed to sexual images continually through the media. He said it is
wrong to blame hip-hop music, as some do, for problems that should be
addressed at home.

"Hip-hop is part of a media matrix. ... It is part of the culture and
young people are very attentive to it," said Forman, who co-edited a
collection of hip-hop articles, titled "That's the Joint! The Hip Hop
Studies Reader." He said young people are doing more than "consuming
the images," adding: "They are not just replicating what they see in
the media, they are making it and reinterpreting it wherever they
live."

Though the Supreme Court has sided with schools over issues of dress
codes involving children under 18, some students are protesting.

In Purcellville, Va., students at Loudoun Valley High School
circulated a petition claiming that the board's decision to ban
dancing violated their First Amendment right of free speech. In some
cities, students have held alternative parties to protest a dance ban
at their high schools.

But the homecoming dance was the first party Zecheiah Martin, 16,
attended at Stephenson, and she was surprised at what she saw.

"We were around adults and we should carry ourselves better," said
Martin, a 10th-grader. "I didn't know people danced like that at
homecoming. It looked like people were having sex."