For some reason, multicolored rubber-band bracelets are all the rage among kids in elementary school across the country right now. Naturally, then, school principals have responded by banning them.
At least two grade schools — PS 87 in New York City and Greenwich Country Day in the tony suburbs of Connecticut — have outlawed the faddish rainbow bracelets, reports the New York Post.
The principal of PS 87 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side claimed that the wristlets are distracting students in class and causing fights during recess.
“The children are playing with the bracelets during class without permission from teachers,” Suzan Federici, the principal at PS 87, wrote in a sternly worded letter. She said the rubber-band jewelry is also “causing conflict between children” on the playground.
“Therefore, starting immediately, your children are no longer allowed to bring any Rainbow Loom bracelets or the kits to school,” Federici ordered.
Parents aren’t pleased.
“This is ridiculous. There is nothing illicit about Rainbow Looms,” a PS 87 parent told the Post. “Unreal.”
“Now I have a hundred thousand rubber bands around my house,” grumbled another parent.
Student’s aren’t happy, either.
“I think it’s horrible. We should be able to have them at least at recess,” fourth-grader told the tabloid.
“It’s not fair,” added a fuming fifth-grader. “They said kids were arguing over them, but they weren’t. Now we can’t wear them at all.”
In New York, the rubber-band jewelry ban appears to be specific to PS 87.
“The DOE has no official ban on rainbow loom bracelets. Under the discipline code, it is at the discretion of the principal to prohibit items they feel may be disruptive to the classroom or to a child’s learning,” a representative of New York City’s education department told the Post.
In the affluent Connecticut suburbs north of New York City, parents who send their kids to Greenwich Country Day say the fancypants private school has also issued an edict against rainbow bracelets.
There is a handful of bracelet-making kits on the market. One of the bestsellers is Rainbow Loom, a “super fun rubber band bracelet making kit” that includes “600+ latex free rubber bands.”
The kits and the bracelets which issue forth from them are very popular around the country among grade-schoolers, who trade and give away the bracelets.
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