School code shouldn't trump parental decisions on dress

School code shouldn't trump parental decisions on dress
EDITOR:
I am a freshman student at Jackson-Milton High School. It's my first year attending school here. A big issue I have is the school dress code. I disagree with what our options are and how we are limited to a small selection that does not appeal to most students here. I don't stand alone, many students here feel the same way, and I speak for many when I say that the rules should be reconsidered.
I do understand that there are certain clothes that aren't school appropriate. I don't think we should wear whatever we please; however, I do think we should be allowed to wear what is considered to be comfortable to most people. We're only in high school; we should be comfortable in a decent manner while we have to sit and learn for several hours.
Some of our freedoms that we use to express our uniqueness, are being taken away. When we dye our hair a color that might stand out that's because we want it to. It's not fair that we have to change our style just for school. If it's not against the law then it shouldn't be against the school dress code. Also when students go out and spend a lot of money to get a piercing, the school shouldn't be able to tell us to remove it. That piercing might close up during that time, meaning we wasted our money.
If our parents allow it then the school should have no say so about how adults parent their children. It shouldn't be any of their business anyways. All I ask is for students to have the same rights as full citizens. And since we're the future citizens of this world, we should be treated like it.
JESSICA D'AMICO
North Jackson
Rosa Parks tops the list of most influential people
EDITOR:
Recently I watched a program on the Discovery Channel, where they asked the TV audience to vote for one person among 25 nominees as "the most influential." I caught the tail-end of the program so I did not see all the 25 nominees. Among the ones I saw were Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Billy Graham, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Rosa Parks. Without giving it a second thought, I selected Rosa Parks as the most influential person.
Rosa Parks, a poor black woman in the deeply segregated South, by a simple act of courage and conviction not only changed but saved the United States. Rosa did not have wealth, fame or political power. She did not have an army. She was an ordinary citizen, but because of the color of her skin, she could not even vote in a national election as a United States' citizen without jumping over hurdles.
However, in the face of danger, including beating and even lynching, she simply refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Her saying "no" in a soft and no doubt timid voice, subsequently was heard around the world. I can just imagine the name-calling and humiliation, which she must have endured, but because she believed in a principle greater than herself, and greater than the totality of her tormentors, she stood her grounds and risked her life for the cause of justice. Justice, which in human discourse, transcends religion, wealth, fame and power. Without justice, there is no law; without just laws, there is no civilization. The effect of what Rosa Parks did was universal in scope, because it touched all human kind.
Abraham Lincoln's Civil War brought a divided nation together, but Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat to a white man in a highly segregated Montgomery, Ala., kept a nation from being divided.
Yes, my vote goes to Rosa Parks as the "most influential" person of our times -- she saved us from ourselves.
RASHID A. ABDU, M.D.
Canfield