This time of a school year is an important time of farewells and year-end closure. Part of that experience is signing yearbooks and leaving messages to friends and classmates. Leaving students often get special “Once a Panther, Always a Panther” T-shirts signed as a keepsake of their fond memories at ISB.
Unfortunately, we also see some immaturity surface at this time of year as well. Students may write inappropriate language or messages in a yearbook or on a t-shirt. We have seen them draw inappropriate pictures that leave the receiving students with a yearbook or shirt that they can’t share with their parents or possibly leaves them feeling bad about an inappropriate message instead of good about the kind and friendly messages from others. This is not fair to those other students and not appropriate for some students to deface another student’s property (whether they think their friend will think it funny, or not).
From experience we have seen unfortunate intense arguments take place after yearbooks came out because someone wrote something explicit and inappropriate, and a parent happened to read it. We hope to help avoid this.
This weekend may be a good time to speak with your children about both ensuring that: 1) they are only asking for messages from friends that they trust will not deface or ruin their property; and 2) they are behaving maturely themselves and recognize that these are not the places for that type of offensive remark or material.
This is something we speak with students about each year and would appreciate support from parents at home on this as well. If students demonstrate offensive material in others’ books or on their shirts, we will have to withhold them from signing other students’ property during school hours to protect the other students from this damaging behavior.
Thank you for any support you can provide in relaying this message of maturity.