commentary by Patrick H. Moore
High School has started in school districts all over the country which means educators have to deal with some rather serious matters. For example, officials at Brantley Elementary School in Selma, Ala. placed a sixth-grade teacher on paid administrative leave on Wednesday after he directed his students to reenact the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
But seriousness is in the eye of the beholder, or rather administrator, and at Noble High School in Noble, Oklahoma, District Superintendent Ronda Bass didn’t like the way some of the girls were dressed on the first day of school, and as a result of her perhaps heavy-handed actions, now finds herself, at least temporarily, in the “hot seat”.
Education Editor Eric Owens writes for The Daily Caller:
An Oklahoma school district superintendent angered some female students late this week when she publicly made examples of them for wearing what the superintendent called inappropriate attire.
The scene of the fashion furor was Noble High School in tiny Noble, Okla., just southeast of Norman, reports Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR-TV.
“As I was greeting the children coming in I knew we had a major, major problem on our hands,” school district superintendent Ronda Bass told the station.
As the day wore on, Ms. Bass apparently could not the image of these inappropriately dressed girls out of her mind and decided to have it out with the kids by having a frank talk at the end of the school day on Thursday about what she considered to be their overly-revealing garb.
As is often the case in matters of such grave importance, there is some dispute over 1)whether the discussion included just some students or the entire student body, and 2) precisely what was said at the meeting.
Here is what was said, according to what Superintendent Bass told KFOR:
“The first question I asked was how many of you in here believe that there are female students on the campus today that are dressed completely inappropriate. Most of their hands went up.”
Sounds quite reasonable, doesn’t it? Yes, if that’s what she said. According to senior Stephanie Stewart, however, the superintendent’s choice of words was far saltier:
“The first sentence was, ‘Have y’all ever seen any ‘skanks’ around this school?’”
Hmmmmm? Perhaps a bit over the top.
Stephanie then repeated what she claims was one of the Super’s final statements:
“Around the end she said, ‘I don’t want to see anyone’s ass hanging out of their shorts.’”
Well, you really can’t blame her for that. The student “ass” must be clothed at all times. We certainly don’t want any of the teachers to get any wrong ideas.
KFOR asked the Super if she had actually used such language, but she apparently didn’t answer directly. Instead, Bass told the NBC affiliate “she worried that students from other towns were calling our girls really negative names.”
“I want us to be known as the classy lady Bears,” Bass added. (Noble High School’s mascot is a bear.)
“I am very proud to be known as ‘Mama Bear Bass,’” she also said.
According to senior student Stephanie Stewart, in order to drive her point home, the Super showed up again at Noble High the following morning (Friday) and personally performed a dress code check inspection. According to Stewart, the Super asked some of the girls to “bend over”.
Superintendent Bass more or less tacitly admitted that she did ask some of the girls to “bend over”, stating:
“If you’re not comfortable with bending over, we might have a problem.”
It turns out that Stewart was one of the students Bass singled out critically for her fashion choices.
Stewart informs that Bass actually sent some girls home from school on Friday because of their clothes, and that some of the girls cried as a result.
“A lot of girls actually felt humiliated,” the senior told the station.
Noble High School librarians
Mama Bear Bass is clearly not backing down. She reportedly drafted an email to teachers asking for their help to bring about “a new norm of modesty” in the halls of Noble High.
Eric Owens points out that the dress code for Noble High students does not appear to be available at the school district’s website.
Fashion disputes over clothes in America’s public schools pop up somewhat routinely. Last year, for example, a school district in Little Rock, Ark. announced a dress code that requires teachers to wear underwear. (Little Rock School District Will Now Make Teachers Wear Underwear)
Not unreasonable, in my opinion.
* * * * *
From my perspective, I can see validity in both sides’ viewpoints. Although Mama Bear Bass was probably a bit awkward in the way she went about getting her point across, she is to be commended for wanting her students to dress respectably.
On the other hand, a great many high school girls insist on dressing revealingly, and I should know considering that my daughter just graduated from high school. The fact of the matter is there may not be much correlation between how high school girls dress and to what degree they are or are not sexually “eager”. A lot of teenage girls just love to strut their stuff; it seems to just be part of growing up and probably is not of any real significance except in how it is perceived in the eyes and minds of the adult community.
During my last semester of high school, I was lucky enough to have a very pretty girl friend. Normally, she would dress casually and not that revealingly. One day, however, she came to school wearing a noticeably short dress and the administrators made her go home and change. Presumably, they did not make her “bend-over”, however.
I imagine this scandal at Noble High will blow over in time. Mama Bear Bass will continue being Mama Bear Bass and the girls will probably push the envelope from time-to-time. It is noted that Ms. Bass is a Veteran of the United States Air Force where she specialized in Signals Intelligence and Morse Code Interception during the Persian Gulf War. She is no dummy and based on her pictures, is an rather attractive woman.
What’s truly important, though, if I might state the obvious, is not “how the girls are dressing” but rather “what they are learning”. The real challenge is getting the kids to think and use their brains and Noble High School seems to be doing a decent job of that. I looked up their test scores on Great Schools.Org and Noble High’s scores are very respectable. So someone is doing something right, even though everyone doesn’t always see eye-to-eye.
http://www.greatschools.org/oklahoma/noble/1045-Noble-High-School/?tab=test-scores
Here is a clip from, the Noble High School 2014 talent show where three students do a credible job of singing Emeli Sandé’s beautiful song “Next to Me“. As you will see, this is some pretty cool stuff. The kids start out a bit nervous but then warm up and do a fine job.