Two students rolled into their music class on Feb. 1 wearing baseball hats.
A teacher immediately pointed to their heads.
Hats off, he said.
That tried and true public school tradition is a changin’.
Seymour High School has started allowing students to wear hats in school.
The move came after a group of students asked permission from Seymour High School Principal Cathy Goodrich earlier this year.
The school has no official policy on hats, but has traditionally banned them from school grounds.
However, based on the students’ requests, Goodrich decided to allow hats in the school on a trial basis, according to Seymour Board of Education chairman Yashu Putorti.
“The students petitioned the principal to allow them to wear hats,” Putorti said. “They did it very respectfully. They went to the principal very professionally.”
The administration agreed to allow hats — but said the classroom rules on hats would still be set by individual teachers.
So if a teacher asks a student to remove a hat, the student will have to remove it.
Goodrich, who reported to the Board of Education on March 5 about the rule change, told the board there have been no problems with the hat-wearing.
She did not return calls for comment this week.
The issue sparked a ton of comments on the Valley Indy’s Facebook page. More than 40 Valley residents weighed in.
The following are some of the comments:
Mary Ann DeAngelis: If that’s all they do and it will make them happy … so be it … don’t sweat the small stuff … (they can still learn w/hats on)
Kae Gallagher: No, just another peg down on the ladder of civilized humans.
Jonathan Wilde: No way, puts them in a different mood. Fighting occurrences will go up!! They must be dumber than I remember. This has been proven in schools for years, they will never learn I guess…
Penny Groves: My gramps taught me no hats inside, at any table, while talking to an adult, at an outside formal like wedding or funeral etc. How will these kids learn respect?
Daria Sen: Only if they are top hats and they are also required to wear either a monacle or an ascot. Anything less and society will crumble.
Dana Pennoyer Palermo: Seeing as the STUDENTS ASKED PERMISSION — instead of just violate the rules . . then why not… trial period and reevaluate…
Michelle Civale: Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when did we stop teaching kids that respect is important. The whole problem with hats is that it makes it more difficult for kids to make respectful eye contact with their teachers … a skill that is less practiced because of texting and social media.
PHOTO: Jodie Mozdzer Amar Lapastica sits in a music theory class with his hat on the ground behind him.
Putorti did not know the exact date the policy went into effect, but said it was sometime before the board’s Feb. 6 meeting, when the topic first came up.
After Goodrich’s presentation Monday, the board didn’t have any objections to the change, Putorti said.
“Based on the (initial) reaction of the board, I thought we were going to have an issue with it,” Putorti said. “But there was no discussion.”
Putorti said he personally thinks allowing hats indoors is a bad idea.
“I said I don’t like it,” Putorti said. “It’s kind of disrespectful to wear a hat in the building.”
NOTE: Many of the Facebook posts came from cell phones, and have been cleaned up for spelling and punctuation.
