1."In the late '80s, my high school banned tank tops — but they were allowed with something over them. They also banned mesh or sheer shirts, only allowed with something under them."
2."Back in the 1980s, there was one kid in my school who was hardcore into the punk scene. Had a bright blue, 6"-high, razor-thin, stand-up-straight mohawk. The principal gave him detention for being a distraction, etc., and his parting words that day were, 'And tomorrow...no more blue mohawk!'
3."I went to a Catholic grade school growing up, which had a strict boys hair-length policy. It couldn’t touch the collar of your shirt, and I wanted long hair. So the principal came in one day to talk to the class; when she was leaving the room, she called me out for my long hair in front of my classmates."
4."Senior year, my school banned jackets. A friend was cold, wore his jacket to lunch, and the VP told him to take it off. A friend pulled out the student handbook and asked where it said he couldn't wear it."
5."Someone stole a key from the janitor (he usually just left them on his desk). It happened to be a universal key to all the locks, except for the server room. The server room had a second hidden door, which the thief found. They came in after school and stole the servers from the school. All the grades and data for the students were on those servers."
6."This was probably around 2001–2 or so. I ran an illicit unfiltered-internet-access cartel out of my school library."
7."Not me, but my friend's dad. His teacher told him his tie was the most important part of the uniform and he had to wear it no matter what."
8."We had a French teacher who was really bad and most people barely tolerated. It happened a few times that whoever arrived first would stand outside her door as if waiting for her to show up and unlock it."
9."In third grade (back in the early '90s), my brother did not want to participate in some sort of multiple class activity. He just hung around the edges until a teacher approached him and told him, 'Now dear, you can't be here without participating.'"
10."At our school, we were all forced to wear black trousers despite blistering heat to the point of people passing out. One guy came in shorts and got sent home."
11."A kid was passing notes, and the teacher caught him and insisted he had to give the note so she could read it out loud.
12."We weren't allowed to wear sweaters that weren't from school. This rule was never really enforced, but they had just come out with a new sweater design after like 20 years of not having one, and they wanted to get all the money from the students they could. I, like a good student, started going to school with the school sweater. One from 20 years ago that I found in my dad's closet."
13."My daughters both went to a Catholic high school. My younger one had a bit of a wild streak. The girls were required to wear a skirt every day to school. My daughter did not care for this rule and wore her skirt around her head one day since the dress code required the students to wear a skirt, just not where."
14."So I went to high school in South Texas, an area in which it almost never snows. For me, this doesn’t mean anything, but I have lived in most of the North for my life, so I know what it’s like to play in the snow. However, somehow it ended up snowing overnight. And by snow, I mean what snow looks like in the North — deep and not just thin and watery. These were immensely heavy flakes."
15."In high school during the student body president election, my friend started a campaign that was kind of a meme at the time. It was a poster that featured a green faceless figure in a suit that said, 'Vote for nobody. Nobody tells the truth, nobody will fight for you, nobody cares,' with nobody being personified as this faceless figure."
16."I had a teacher who got into a power struggle with every reasonably smart kid, so we tended not to try in her class. As a result, she began to grade the progress monitoring tool we used. This proved to me that the tool didn't matter; if it did, she would have graded it from the start instead of waiting until she realized she looked bad."
17."This was prior to smartphones circa 2002. One of my classmates was a regular class clown. He would buy brownies in the cafeteria and roll them up in his hand so they looked like a convincing piece of poo. He would then do all sorts of antics with this poo. Put it on seats, throw it at people, what have you. Obviously, the school staff caught on, and he got in trouble."
18."A buddy of mine was caught messing with his phone during class. Back then, the school rules were that if you were caught, your phone was confiscated for an entire day, and you couldn't get it back until the next day. This was before smartphones, and the rules have changed since the 10 years that I graduated there."
19."One of my male friends wore a dress that adhered to the dress code. He got suspended for creating a disturbance. I rollerbladed to school, and I realized that rollerblades met with the dress code (shoes will be worn at all times and cover the heel and toes)."
20."My friend was told in high school by his guidance counselor not to waste his time applying to his dream school because he wouldn't get in. He got pissed off and went to the principal, who told him it was the counselor's job to give her best opinion, so he trusts whatever she says. He applied anyway and got in."
21."We had vending machines outside the buildings, but someone vandalized them and pissed the school board off. The machines were put off-limits, but could not be powered down due to some kind of contractual obligation of constant availability."
22."At my middle school, you weren't allowed to use phones on campus, including after school. A lot of my friends and I had no choice but to stay late after school, so we asked our security guards if we could use our phones, and his answer was, 'As long as your butt is on this campus, you can't use your phones until after 4.' We also had a rule saying that once you left campus, you can't come back without a reason (like an extracurricular activity)."
23."I went to a tiny Baptist high school. I had band stickers on the back of my car, including one for Barenaked Ladies. This was deemed inappropriate, and I had to remove it, or I wasn’t allowed to drive anymore."
24."A substitute teacher at my school asked a burned child to take his mask off (he had several burn scars on his visage and was wearing a different mask every day. He made cool masks, some with drawings on them, some with matte color, and some with whiteboard material, making it possible for people to draw on it, and just erase it; it was really cool)."
25."Last year our school banned backpacks and bags in general since they were apparently a 'safety hazard.' Two days later, some guy in my year came in carrying his books and pencil case in a microwave."
26."Back in Year 10, our entire year staged a walkout where they didn't turn up for class, walked to the field, and went on strike. The turnout was pretty huge. I don't know what exactly caused this walkout. Some did it in solidarity with unionized (NUT) teachers who went on strike during that week, some did it because Jamie Oliver's school dinners documentary led to the council introducing a bylaw that banned ice cream vans from pulling up on the school grounds, but many had no clue what they were protesting and just joined in because they didn't want to go to class."
27."There was technically no rule against bringing a George Foreman and a cooler of breakfast meats and then cooking it up in study hall."
28."In my school, you were given a suspension if you had Pokemon cards. So essentially we started a Pokemon card trading network. If you told a teacher about losing your card, you were not respected."
29."Halloween costumes were banned at my high school because of some idiots like 10 years before that dressed up and used it as an excuse to hide their face while they vandalized the school."
Note: Some answers have been lightly edited for length and/or clarity.
