(Old school hugging outside of class)
Damn you, hugs.
Evil, awful, good-for-nothing hugs are being banned from a North Carolina middle school–maybe–and it’s got the Internet buzzing.
Alcohol, drugs, and baggy pants, those are reasonable items to banish from school property, according to students at Chase Middle School, but putting the kibosh on an innocent little snuggle?
The nerve.
To say students are not embracing the school’s alleged hugging ban is an understatement.
To show the world how much they detest the rumored new rule, a group of Chase students created a Facebook page dedicated to promoting hugs on campus. The pro-huggers displayed their solidarity at the school where like-minded tweens and teens met in the hallway to embrace as many people as possible, per the Facebook page’s suggestion.
Not surprisingly, school administrators were peeved by the protest.
While hugging can lead to… well, a lot more than just a friendly squeeze, that’s not what led to talk of Chase’s ban.
According to the students, the squash on friendly embraces followed a seizure that sent eighth-grader Parker Jackson to the hospital in an ambulance. When Jackson returned to school he was greeted with an avalanche of hugs courtesy of friends and classmates. Those same kids maintain that administrators were so disturbed by the public display of affection they immediately implemented the ban.
However, the school superintendent has another take on the situation.
Dr. Janet Mason told a local Fox affiliate that the county’s school policy handbook prohibits “behavior which is immoral, indecent, lewd, disreputable or of an overly sexual nature” but it does not explicitly mention hugging at all.
If a no-hugging ban is officially put into place, Chase wouldn’t be the only school in the nation to have one. Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School in New Jersey does not allow students to hug on campus. In addition, Brooklyn Prospect Charter School in New York has a strict no-hugging rule in place.
How would you feel if your child’s school banned hugs?