Teaching is no easy gig. And unfortunately, sometimes it’s made less easy by school rules that sound like they came from the desk of a petty tyrant instead of a principal. Case in point: this ponytail rule. When we saw it going viral, we couldn’t believe it—except for the fact that our readers have shared other wild rules over the years. Let’s take a look.
1. One ponytail per month
In response to @educatorandrea’s viral video rounding up ridiculous rules for teachers, one teacher responded that their principal limited teachers to one ponytail per month. Another teacher responded saying their principal outlawed messy buns. What in the female-hating workplace is this?
We LOVED this brilliant follow-up to this notion from @itsmaggieperkins: “This is a question for the district where teachers are only allowed to wear one ponytail per month: Are you guys regulating how often certain teachers wear Crocs? Shapeless khakis? Random polos with the school logo on it from ten years ago?” She’s not wrong.
2. Teachers can’t use the … teachers lounge
We all know positivity goes a long way. But toxic positivity—dismissing all negative emotions or critical feedback—can breed resentment and disconnection. Take it from this educator whose principal took toxic positivity to the next level: “I worked for a school district once where the superintendent would not allow us to have a lounge/workroom because ‘Teachers just go in there to gossip.’”
Excuse me? We also use it for Peanut M&Ms.
Some schools try to enforce toxic positivity outside their walls. “When I was hired, I was told that I was not allowed to complain about ANYTHING work-related to anyone who did not work for the school … including my husband,” shared one teacher. I would have asked, “Should I pat him down to see if he’s wearing a wire?”
3. No water or coffee
Now this is sadistic. “I had a principal that banned coffee,” a teacher told us. “The reasoning was if the students couldn’t have it, neither could we. I went to university for 5 years to become a teacher … I earned that coffee!” Another teacher said their principal was OK with coffee but not soda, again because students couldn’t have it. “I was livid. I have to have my Diet Coke in the morning!” Me too, teacher friend.
Some principals don’t make school rules about what you drink, but how you drink it. “All drinks had to be in a traditional coffee mug with no lid, even water. I don’t even know why but when someone’s water spilled on a computer, we were suddenly allowed to have water bottles with lids again.”
All of these teachers can count themselves lucky, though, since one principal we heard about doesn’t allow their teachers to drink anything at all in the classroom. “No coffee, no soda, no water. Nothing.” Urologists might have something to say about that one.
4. Parking lot nastygrams
Bet you didn’t have this on your “Kooky School Rules” bingo card. One school measures how far each car is from the lines, issuing nastygrams to those who don’t park perfectly. At another, teachers have to back into their parking spots each day (like teachers on their way into work don’t have enough to worry about already). And don’t try to get chatty in the parking lot at this school: “Our principal said staff couldn’t talk in the parking lot, like everyone does when they are arriving for work or leaving at the end of the day. She felt it would look like teachers were talking about her.” Maybe they are with rules like that, Janice!
It can’t get worse than that, certainly? Well, we learned about one school that doesn’t have a parking lot at all. Teachers have to park on the street and feed the meters all day.
5. Saying hi to the principal
A surprising number of schools require teachers to sign in at the office each morning, which unsurprisingly creates a whole host of problems. For instance, many teachers often arrive before their administrators do. “We had to remember to interrupt our work in our classrooms and walk back to the office after the sign-in book was out,” reports one teacher. “Every teacher has to stop in the office and say hello to the principal before school starts,” says another. “I have kids in my classroom as early as an hour before school starts … he gets in a half hour later.”
One teacher reported not getting paid for the day if they didn’t sign in (we’re pretty sure that’s not legal). Another teacher once walked into school with her principal an hour early. “When I went into the office to sign in, she said, ‘Come back later; it’s not ready.’ I came back right before my duty started, and she marked me late!”
6. An actual, real-life Late Book
Running late? Get ready to be shamed by … THE LATE BOOK. “Our secretary monitored the sign-in book,” one teacher shared. “At 7 a.m., she removed it and replaced it with the dreaded LATE BOOK. Staff waiting in line were required to put the reason for their late arrival. One friend wrote, ‘having sex with my husband.’”
Who needs a late book when you can just be shamed in public? “I had a principal once question me angrily in front of my students when we arrived at the cafeteria for lunch, about what time I went to bed at night, because I was a couple minutes late that morning. This, after she yelled at me from the end of the building and said, ‘Nice of you to join us today!’ while I was talking to a parent at my classroom door. When I told her I didn’t feel the need to discuss what time I went to bed with her, she literally sent me to the office to have the VP grill me (on my lunch). Ended in me crying and being sent back to my classroom of first graders after, AND I never got to eat lunch.”
And then there’s the school that wants you to plan your emergencies: “I had to leave during the day to pick up my injured child. I notified the front office staff, who arranged coverage for my class. The next day the principal announced a rule that all emergencies had to be cleared by her 24 hours in advance.” Um, what?
7. Late to the faculty meeting? You’re locked out.
Speaking of running late, teachers at one school better be on time for their morning staff meeting. “Staff meetings started at 7:30 a.m. ON THE DOT. The principal watched the time on her phone and locked the door immediately when the time changed to 07:30:00. Then she proceeded to laugh at the teachers running across campus and encouraged us to laugh and jeer at them too. They were not allowed in and were later reprimanded for missing the meeting.” Is their principal Michael Scott?
While we’re all in favor of keeping meetings short, this seems a little excessive: “During district staff meetings a superintendent insisted that, instead of clapping your hands together multiple times in applause for any reason, we could only clap once. She claimed clapping wasted too much time!” I just … I cannot.
8. In trouble for working late
There’s never enough time in the day, right? Well, that’s just too bad! “I was once told by the other teachers to stop working in my classroom on weekends to get caught up, or I’d be reported to the district for working after hours,” one teacher confided. Where is this district who forbids you to work after hours? Asking for a me.
“I had a principal yell at me for putting in too many (unpaid) evening hours,” shared another. “The morning after, I ran an extremely successful book fair/carnival. Spent weeks working with junior high volunteers who design and build all themed games for the younger students. A great learning experience of creativity, charity, kindness, and leadership went overlooked.”
9. No hand sanitizer allowed
“We had all the hand sanitizer in the school taken away because it is flammable,” says one teacher. “I pointed out that so is all the paper and a very good reason to not allow students to have matches!”
This one is even more difficult to understand. “In my daughter’s kindergarten classroom, they weren’t allowed soap (in case the kids ate it?!),” a reader shared. “She would bring it and hide it from the ‘Health & Safety’ inspectors.” Or, I don’t know, host an intervention with the soap-eating children?
We also loved the story of the principal who would monitor paper towel usage of the staff bathroom next to her office. If she heard someone “pumping” the paper towel dispenser more than twice, she’d scold them for wasting paper. One teacher grew so tired of it, she started using the student bathrooms.
10. Want to use the copier? Prove it.
Copiers have always been contentious, especially as schools try to save money. One principal requires teachers to prove their copies are “academically beneficial.” Another allots only $20 per teacher per year for copier costs. And then there’s this: “Our admin used to give us each one case of paper each semester, and if we ran out, we had to buy our own. What usually ended up happening was teachers would go into other teachers’ rooms and steal reams of paper. I always kept my case of paper in the trunk of my car, as did many of my colleagues.”
Then there’s the laminator. Many teachers report having to give all laminating tasks to a trained aide. That may sound OK, but what if the aide’s schedule is unpredictable? Or they have a worrisome power trip going? “Our aide would quiz you on why you needed it laminated and you had to promise to use the item for at least three years!” What I want to know is if you have to sign the laminating contract with your own blood or if you can use a sacrificial animal instead.
11. No more than two exclamation points
Definitely don’t try to get parents involved as partners in their child’s success. “We were not allowed to call or even email parents. We were allowed to communicate POSITIVE NOTES ONLY by writing in the student’s agenda.” Hopefully not too positive, though, since one teacher told us, “I could only use two exclamation points when writing notes and things to parents. Don’t want to show too much excitement.”
All kids need a period of adjustment when school starts in the fall, but how long should it last? At one school, “teachers cannot write any disciplinary referrals or give suspensions before Christmas. Consequently, by Halloween, the students, not the staff, are running the school.” So much for behavior having consequences.
12. Lessons must be identical
Brace yourselves for one of the nuttiest school rules for teachers we’ve ever heard: “Every teacher in a grade level had to be teaching the same thing at the exact same time. The logic was if a student needed to be moved, they would walk in where they left off.” Maybe that doesn’t seem too bad? How about this twist: “When we were observed, if the admin left my room and went into another class of the same grade level, the admin should be able to hear the same lesson continued as if we were on the same script. BUT we were not allowed to share lesson plans.”
On that same note, one teacher says, “If you put anything up on the wall in your class, the same thing had to go up in all the other grade-level rooms. It also had to be in the same spot so if students moved rooms, they knew exactly where to look.” Just … wow.
13. A new level of micromanagement
Teachers generally respect authority. That is until the powers that be become downright unreasonable. For instance, one principal requires all window shades in the entire building to be at the same height. (Still scratching my head over that one.) Another teacher reports a principal who regularly came in and took pictures of her messy desk, then tested her. “She would ask for random items that she thought I wouldn’t be able to find. I have a filing system that is called ‘If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist’ so everything is out on my desk, but I can find it. Put it in a neat file in the cabinet and it is gone for life. …”
Here’s one last nutty gem. “I had one principal that was an extreme micro-manager. She had these rules about data charts. They had to be specifically color-coded. Whatever, fine. I forgot to color-code and got a nasty email about efficiency. Whatever! OK, I color-coded. Got it over and done with. Then ANOTHER nasty email. I didn’t use the correct shade of blue, red, or green and I needed to drop what I was doing and fix it ASAP. So I put it off. I got so many nasty emails it bordered on harassment. All because the shades I used were not the principal’s preferred shades.”