The misadventures of Captain Underpants
My 7-year-old is already over Captain Underpants–they grow up so fast!–but I still got a chuckle out of this latest Underpants-related public school folly:
Blame Captain Underpants. At least a little.
This year — partly because three Long Beach High School seniors last year just had to emulate Mr. Underpants in all his tighty-whitey glory, Halloween costumes will be banned from the school this week.
No Wonder Womans, no pirates, no bloody ghouls allowed.
Principal Nicholas Restivo, who was on the front lines in the Captain Underpants drama, said the incident helped cement a decision he already was leaning toward.
“Captain Underpants certainly convinced me again that banning costumes was the right way to go,” he said. “As a result of Captain Underpants, I found out that we are definitely in the minority of schools that allowed kids to come in wearing costumes.”
Restivo sent a letter home last week to parents and has been announcing his decision on the public address system at school as a reminder to students.
It is the post-Captain Underpants world they live in, but some students said they aren’t going to let this so-not-fair ban stand without a fight. If the chubby star of Dave Pilkey’s children’s books can take on such adversaries as Professor Poopypants and the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies, well, they have their methods too.
They are circulating a petition, and the word is some are planning to protest by showing up in costume anyway.
“The costume ban is ridiculous,” said Meghan Beck, a junior. “It’s one thing if the school won’t let us wear outfits that are revealing or inappropriate, but if it is an innocent Halloween costume we should be allowed to wear it.”
I’m sure that a lot of students’ “normal,” everyday clothes are far more risque than the Captain Underpants costumes.
That said, the idea that these kids should be entitled to wear Halloween costumes (”we should be allowed to wear it”) is more than mildly annoying. How about fewer extra-curricular shenanigans and more, you know, like, learning?
Good on the Principal Poopypants at Long Beach High.
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I’m not a big fan of the “persuade kids to read” trend that’s been going on for a couple of decades. Reading should be fun but I think the CU genre and other stuff is downright silly.
It also puts what is usually “hidden” out in the open for no apparent reason but to get kids to read. It’s like the trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science at Cal for elementary schoolers where they learn what a “Fart” is. No context. No science. Just giggles and ewws.
So the elementary schoolers are now in high school. What do “educators” expect? More silliness.
I agree. Keep the focus on teaching, learning, and developing a soul based on learning about the world on the world’s terms.
How about only letting students with good grades come in costumes?
I won’t link it due to NSFW language but the FARK thread about this had pics of the young ladies in their costumes.
Except for their hands & heads,their entire bodies were covered.
Cheerleaders wear less.
God Bless Cheerleaders.
It would be nice if the school stuck to teaching, but this is the same State that forced Jewish and Christian kids to be Muslims for 2 weeks costumes and all. And the courts said that was just fine. Then we have the hajib day. Where our American girls can experience misogynism , or ‘freedom’ as it is known in Islam.
Birth control for 11 year olds, cant wear a halloween costume for Seniors. lame.
bear1909 – we’ve sent children to school on All Hallows Eve dressed in costume since their earliest years, what do we expect? Raising a nation of children has been hard work (saw costumes on the net today for $150 to look like Paris Hilton in jailhouse orange – somebody is buying this nonsense). Now we expect them to be grown ups, leaving the Britney Spears influence behind. There must be a slow down to silliness and a return to the real world. The magic of learning is unlike any other form of self improvement.
During Spirit Week at my sons high school a few years back my son and his two best friends decided to go on costume day as the Power Puff girls. Nothing wrong with 3 six-foot-three Eagle Scouts zooming through the halls IMPO, lol. His teachers still remember him *grin* (in a nice way). If a kid is dressed inappropriately, they get sent home to change; why punish all for the stupidity of the few?
I agree with Meghan Beck and disagree with you.
It happens, sorry. 
Obviously Reading, Writing, and Arithmatics are important, but there’s no harm in schools allowing a “fun day”. Wasn’t it a few weeks ago there was an outcry of Halloween and Christmas parties getting banned because it would upset Muslim students?
Obvious decorum rules of costume dress should suffice – no overt offense (i.e. no Klansmen, Jesus Mockery, Bush Beheaded) and nothing revealing, including Captain Underpants, Adam and Eve, etc. Superman, Freddy Krueger, a Living Dead, Harry Potter, etc., really should be fine.
My favorite costume as a kid was the King of Hearts, but I fondly remember my Train Engineer, George Washington, and Boardwalk and Park Place with a Hotel.
At work I was Darth Vader, Space Ghost, and a particular boisterous co-worker. This year I’ll be a Living Dead.
Wonder what a school system would do if students decided to portray our honorable senators? LOL!
Imagine that! Would that be politically correct?
Now THAT would be scary.
I disagree with the principal’s decision. If wearing a costume is a tradition, why end it entirely because of the action of a few?
If the principal was already leaning toward ending it, why? If it is because it was becoming risque and disruptive, who allowed it to become that way in the first place? From reading the article, it appears to me that there was a time when it wasn’t the case.
The problem with this kind of “zero tolerance” is that neither children nor their teachers have to learn to exercise discretion and demonstrate a little common sense.
We used to have a sense of propriety, of decorum, and no one would have thought to come to school inappropriately clothed at any time/day, Halloween included. As you pointed out, Michelle, today’s “normal” dress is far more risque than any we would have considered in “my” day, i.e. early to mid 60’s.
I must add my apology to Dennis Praeger’s, my generation has done more damage to our wonderful country than any other generation in history. It seemed like the minute we got out of school, my generation got “drugged up & naked”, and “flower power” took over. It was sad to see. As for me, I left SoCal, moved to Arizona, and married a cowboy. I ignored them back then, today I am disgusted by them.
Forgot to add…they (my generation) started the trend.
The only costume that would stop the parade of costumes quicker than Captain Underpants would be to dress up like JESUS. You could probably even shut down the school. Lawyers from everywhere would flock to the district trying to represent all of the “harmed” little tykes who would suffer from having their first amendments right violated.
Cats lying with dogs…complete pandemonium!
The rationale for “punishing” all students is mind-boggling.
His job as principal requires him to make some difficult decisions; however, this is a no-brainer…punish the children who behaved badly not the whole lot. I agree with #8.
If two students get into a fight and he suspends them for a day, does he shut down the school for a day as well?
I too agree with schools having “bigger fish to dry” than this but this is what it has come to…
It’s surprising how many otherwise intelligent people here are confusing high school with day care.
That made me LOL. Have you been to a high school lately?
When my 7 year old gets gassy, we tease him and call him Captain Thunderpants.
I always remind folks at the PTA meeting who want to “change” the way things are going at our school that it is run by people who are being paid an annual full time salary to work 180 days a year- no more and no less.
Was that way through the 80s, the 90s, and now the Big Zeroes.
What’s time to a hog?
Then there is that ridiculous bumper sticker the Lefties like to peddle around here: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
Ya. And how about expensive ignorance. Dumbed down kids with a district superintendent getting paid $250.000.00 per year plus her mortgage payment. And has 3 stuffed suits getting 150K plus.
Vampires. “Oh!!! But they are doing it for the children!”
Gimme some duct tape so my head doesnt explode.
*Hands Bear the duct tape and a brew.
A quick side note – did anyone else notice that the Newsday article misspelled the author’s name? His first name is Dav, not Dave. Something that would have been so easy to get right, and yet, they managed to get it wrong. Must have been preoccupied trying to decide on what costume to wear to the office.
Here is a couple of picture of the costume then wore and maybe MM can download and post them to show how ridiculous this was. They were wearing flesh covered leotards with the underpants over them.
Girls in outfit 1
Girls in outfit 2
If you think the inmates are running the asylum (ie the high school), all you have to do is check out the local vocational schools (four year colleges we already know about)……
When I worked at remington “college” the school went through four sets of CNA instructors before I quit after being on the job for only six months. The sad thing is that these students because they paid $15,000 for a nine month course felt they were entittled to an “A” without the effort, made it clear that nothing would get in the way of it and ends up that the instructor has to change or the client (read: student) complains and still gets their way.
One of the biggest things I learned in a for profit school is that they are very big on image and appearances.
These students buy into the sales pitch that they are going to “college”, they have their own “honor societies”, that the academics are “tough”, that only a very few graduate with the distinction of going to (”Insert name of College) and their graduation mirrors that of the traditional four year institutions (right down to the cap, gown, and pomp&circumstance music).
Unfortunately my experience at the VA convinced me that I wouldn’t dare hire one of these indivduals-short story: dirty scrubs with the pants down to the crack of the buttocks. When asked to pull the pants up, I got the dirtest look and demanded to see the charge nurse. Interesting-the cna student immediately complied and the veteran (aka patient) was ignored.
Unfortunately there are alot of these kinds of students out there, and based on my experiences as both a patient and an instructor-wouldn’t hire them and would rather hire an LVN or a Paramedic instead.
GSP
Protest costume for Long Beach High School Halloween – Burkas
Watch the liberals heads explode from the internal conflict.
Rack!
Spoken like someone who has never actually gotten to know a (good) teacher.
My wife who teaches third grade leaves the house at 6:45AM, gets to her building when it opens by 7:30AM, stays until they kick her out at 5:30PM, (She used to be able to stay until 7PM, but there have been budget problems), comes home, and usually continues working on our couch or her office for an additional 2 or 3 hours correcting papers, planning lessons, or other housekeeping. I estimate she usually puts in a 60 hour work week. Around report card time, that increases.
Your “180 day” thing is a statement of ignorance as well. While your child may get the summer off, teachers (and admins) stay behind, and do all the “behind the scenes” so your child can have some kind of classroom to walk into the first day of school.
My wife also went to school for the past 3 summers to get her masters degree, that the state requires teachers have. Paid mostly out of pocket, I might add.
There are bad teachers and administrators out there, but please don’t make blanket statements, lest ye come off looking foolish.
That’s why football was invented.
Innismir–
Your wife is one in a million–literally. I know too many of the other kind.
So she stays in the classroom where she teaches during the summer AND goes to graduate school? No offense, but that sounds foolish.
Slightly OT. Colleges are better gigs. Some really are an annual salary for a 9 month contract (literally – you are not technically employed for the summer, so it’s vacation). With tenure for security, and senority for scheduling, you can really and truly have a class schedule from 11am on Tuesday to 3pm on Thursday. TAs grade papers and teach some classes and labs for you. Research is done wherever and whenever you want. Throw in a couple of weeks off at Christmas (sorry – the fir tree of peace, hope, happiness and universal health care festival) and one for Easter (oops, the spring bunny of peace, hope, happiness and universal healthcare festival) and you’re all set.
Back OT. And at a University you can teach in your underpants if you want to.
When I was in HS, someone came to school as a Port-a-Potty…I kid you not. It was the funniest damn thing I had ever seen -the kid could hardly sit in his seat on account of his costume’s “bulky nature”. NO one could concentrate. We were laughing so hard.
If we want our kids to be learning..I would suggest the “no costume ban” would probably do the trick!
Let me guess Feebie,
It was the Stinky kid?
Reacted to like somebody who doesn’t know that I was a teacher for nearly 30 years and know dead wood when I see it.
Here in Cali it is one year’s pay for 180 calendar days they need to show up for work. I know people who work for far less and get up earlier than your wife and go to bed a lot later.
So, pardon me for speaking about the cordwood who glut the California public school system. Finding the good ones is like looking for rose petals in a cesspool.
Think or ask before you speak.
Like hell. Again- you are speaking of the rose petals. The cesspool is full of double dipping scum who don’t show their faces during the summer, save for the 2 weeks before school starts.
I speak of the norm and what unions allow.
Now, step off.
You took exception- like most teacher allies do. The problem is your teacher is the exception to the rule while the majority of teachers *who hate their jobs and teach like it* are not held accountable by the rest of the rank and file.
So let’s not paint this picture as if it were a perfect world. The American public school system is a failure. Why try to put cologne on a coyote.
By the way, unless you live in a state not governed by the Federal Tax Code,if her advanced degree was a requirement of her employment, it is largely tax deductible. If you didn’t take advantage of that, shame on you. So let’s not talk about out of pocket.
California? Oh! It all makes sense now! Why didn’t you say so!
*rimshot*
I took exception at the blanket statement. If you qualified your statement with this, I would have continued reading without a peep.
And *there* is the problem. Cutting out the unions would likely solve a good 50% of the issues today. Actively recruiting talented people would probably solve the rest of them.
I never tried to paint a “Gee! Isn’t our school system wonderful?” picture. I happen to agree that there are serious issues with it. I think it isn’t completely %#$%#ed up, but it’s rapidly traveling to a certain destination in a hand basket. Unfortunately, to accomplish a turnaround, drastic measures need to be taken and no one wants to do it.
Yes, we’re not stupid. However, a tax break doesn’t really help when you have to shell out ~$2K in the middle of May. We also take advantage of all her business expenses. Doesn’t change the fact that we still had to pay them in the first place.
I apologize for going off the deep end, but I don’t like my wife being classified into the whole “Teachers suck!” statement. Most teachers suck? Eh, maybe. Some teachers suck and should be booted out onto the curb? Oh yeah.