School forces teen to wear shaming T-shirt; mom sees violation of discipline-record law
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A Florida mom believes her daughter’s school broke a federal law when it forced the teen to wear a “shaming” T-shirt.
Miranda Larkin says she was new to Oakleaf High School in Clay County, Florida, when she wore a skirt to school that reached about three to four inches above the knees. A teacher believed the skirt was too short, in violation of school policy. The teacher sent Larkin to the school nurse’s office, where she was told to don red sweatpants and a yellow T-shirt that read “dress code violation.” Among the news outlets with stories are the Washington Post, News4Jax, First Coast News, ABC News and WLTV-TV.
Larkin says the outfit was supposed to embarrass her, and it did. Her mother, Dianna Larkin, tells First Coast News that Miranda put on the outfit, looked at herself in the mirror “and just broke down. She started sobbing and broke out in hives.”
Dianna Larkin says she plans to file a complaint under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which generally bars disclosure of student disciplinary records.
The school board’s lawyer disagreed with Dianna Larkin’s interpretation of the law. “I have given this consideration, looked at FERPA and have even asked other opinions in other districts,” the lawyer said in a statement published by First Coast News. “None of us see this as a FERPA violation as it is not a personally identifiable student record. Additionally it is not displaying a discipline record to the public. If we put the kid on work detail all students would know that he/she is being disciplined. … Saturday school, same result. Community service, same result. If we took off the words the other students would still know that the prison orange T-shirts were for dress code violations. I think that the practice is OK.”
