Some school rules feel totally and completely arbitrary. That's why I asked the BuzzFeed Community if they had ever followed a school rule that was, quite frankly, ridiculous. From not being allowed to draw Ninja Turtles to having to wear a belt with every outfit, here are the most unreasonable:
1. "My elementary school principal had a phobia of dogs. Wearing something with a dog design on it to school, bringing a book with a dog on the cover, even mentioning dogs, was all strictly forbidden. For all six years of elementary school, I thought that was just a rule everyone had to follow at school!"
—Anonymous
2. "We couldn’t say the word 'bathroom' because the teacher thought it was 'undignified.' We had to say 'restroom' or 'powder room.' Breaking this rule enough times could result in recess detention."
—Anonymous
3. "My public high school had a really strict dress code. We couldn't wear jeans, T-shirts, sweatpants, etc. The school banned floral print because some guys started wearing Hawaiian shirts. To 'stick it to the man,' I wore an apple-print shirt."
—Anonymous
4. "Girls were not allowed to have side fringes or have their eyebrows tweezed. Our hair had to be plaited if it was longer than a certain length, and we’d get yelled at if it wasn’t in a plait. We were also not allowed to walk around during lunch break without our blazers on, even in the sweltering heat (this rule didn’t apply to boys). It sucks that all these years later, these antiquated rules still exist in the school."
—Anonymous
5. "In middle school, belts were required for everyone, even on skirts."
—Anonymous
6. "The worst rule was if you were late to school by any amount of time, you had to apologize to the whole school (even if you were under a minute late). We’d have school meetings three times a week, and you had to stand up and say, 'I apologize to the community for being late.'”
—Anonymous
7. "Students were not allowed to wear anything RED (I'm thinking especially girls), for some reason. As in, the one time I wore a super cute red headband, the school principal told me to take it off and not wear it again, or else she would take it away. I never forgot about it and still talk shit about this school for this dumbassery."
—Anonymous
8. "I went to a super strict Christian school. We were not allowed to listen to 'rock' music. My boyfriend put a mixtape in my locker, and I got caught with it. I got suspended over a tape with Pearl Jam on it."
—Anonymous
9. "A letter went home asking that you celebrate kids' birthdays on the weekends so that their weekdays weren't disrupted with at-home celebrations."
—Anonymous
10. "We had an oversized stoplight in the lunch room with the red light meaning NO TALKING AT ALL and the yellow light meaning TALK QUIETLY. The green light NEVER CAME ON!"
—Anonymous
11. "I was a middle schooler in the mid 2000s, and my school split up boys and girls during lunch and recess. As in, during sixth grade’s lunch, the boys went outside for 20 minutes while the girls went to lunch, then the girls lined up and went outside using a different door (we weren’t allowed to interact with each other during the switch). Same thing for the seventh grade lunch period and eighth grade lunch period. This was for every grade level, and went on for several years."
—Anonymous
12. "It was against the rules to wear shirts with singers on them. I got a cute Beyoncé shirt, but I could only wear it on weekends."
—Anonymous
13. "My teacher didn’t get Beyoncé tickets and was super embittered about it, so singing Beyoncé in her class was strictly prohibited."
—Anonymous
14. "Saying the word 'everything' was strictly prohibited because, according to my first grade teacher, 'There’s no such thing as everything. It’s not real, it’s just an idea made up to make people feel bad.' IDK what that was all about."
—Anonymous
15. "High school girls were not allowed to use the school pool, ever, because it was visible from the boys' high school classrooms."
—Anonymous
16. "We couldn't tie the school hoodie on our waists because it 'made us look like farmers.' (The principal literally said this to me.)"
17. "The principal took my Ventolin (the inhaler you’re supposed to keep on you at all times if you’re asthmatic so you don’t DIE). He said it was so I didn’t overdose (it’s literally impossible to overdose on Ventolin). If I ever had an asthma attack, I had to walk to the office, on the other side of the school, whilst struggling to breathe, to use my Ventolin."
—TSC
19. "If three of your friends were sitting at a table, cool, you could join them. But if there were four people there and you tried to move a chair over, absolutely not. The librarians were absurd about this rule."
20. "My sister once got sent to the principal's office by a teacher because her shoes showed off 'toe cleavage.'"
21. "Our librarian would only let us borrow a pencil if we gave her one of our shoes as collateral. I guess she was tired of not getting her pencils back."
22. "At my school, we had to wear school uniform underpants. I’m not kidding. Grey or white full-coverage cotton underpants. It was a girls-only school, and no, they didn’t check. But for sports, we had to wear blue mini skirts and blue bloomers over our undies, and if you forgot your bloomers, there was trouble."
23. "I went to a religious elementary school and got in trouble for wearing a New Kids on the Block T-shirt because the school did not 'support rock music.' We also weren’t allowed to have anything related to the Ninja Turtles. You couldn’t even draw them."
