Staff Editorial: No news might be bad news for students

The impending restrictions on students in the Santa Barbara High School District are starting to get out of hand. Next year there’s a good chance if you use a cell phone or iPod on campus, you’ll lose it. And let’s not forget the dress code changes that could finally be voted on soon.

For better or worse, clothing has come to define who we are as adolescents. Therefore it’s important to decipher what our friends at the District decide to tell us what to wear.

District officials are finally aware that gang members are dressing in clothing that the people important to them can distinguish as one group of hoodlums compared to another.

The intentions are possibly good. It’s reasonable to prevent gangs from affiliating in any way. But once again, we’re being told what to wear. Before long, we could be dressing in olive polo shirts and khaki pants, while girls will be told to wear some sort of plaid skirt that anyone wouldn’t want to be caught dead in.

Moreover, even the District doesn’t know how to say what it wants to do. The first proposal was rejected by the board because the wording in the official code of conduct was too vague, and subsequent votes have been unsuccessful with the board members.

The electronics ban is also a little up in the air. Students may think it’s the end of the days when they can use their phones to text their friends during class, but in fact there isn’t a formal plan to enforce the new district discipline code yet.

Board members don’t want to be painted as the villains in this situation, and they shouldn’t be. It should be simple to ask that students refrain from putting their texting above learning on their priority list of things to do during class. But it hasn’t been that simple.

What strikes everyone as controversial is the idea that students (or teachers for that matter) won’t be given the freedom to use their phones or iPods on their free time at lunch or between classes. But there’s the rub. It’s the little parts of our lives that feel as though they’re being stripped away. But it’s too early to start pointing fingers.