A Florida middle school girl was reportedly given detention after she gave her friends a hug before the bell rang for classes to begin for the day.
The Jackson Heights Middle School eighth-grader told WKMG Tuesday the hug lasted “literally for a second.” The disputed contact has the girl’s parents questioning the Oviedo school’s policies.
The Seminole County School District’s policy bans “inappropriate touching” but leaves the decision to reprimand students for breaking the code up to principals, according to WKMG. Jackson Heights bans any kind of hugging.
The district told the station that detentions are only given out for repeated offenses. Kathy Fishbough, the girl’s mother, said her daughter was given a warning after previously hugging the same boy. Fishbough said the warning came after the boy put her hand on her head.
“If administration can’t tell the difference between a friendly, ‘How are you doing?’ hug and an inappropriate hug, then I think we have a big problem,” she said.
When Fishbough asked district officials if her daughter would get in trouble if she wanted to console her cousin over something, the officials replied, “Yes ma’am.”
WKMG reports that most of the policies have been in place for nearly a decade and some of them were approved by parent-teacher committees.
The girl is expected to serve her detention on Friday, according to the Washington Post. But now she’s afraid to even touch anyone at her school.
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