Middle School Bans Hugging

A middle school in New York has placed a ban on hugging between classes, reports the New York Daily News. Although it sounds like the plot of a Footloose sequel (Armloose?), Brooklyn Prospect Charter School’s principal Dan Rubinstein told The Brooklyn Paper that the ban was created to keep the students from lingering in the hallways, disrupting the flow of traffic and making kids tardy for their classes.

“It’s a time, place, and manner thing,” he said. “We don’t want students spending too much social time between class.”

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The students are also not permitted to eat or go to the bathroom during the three-minute breaks between classes, raising the question of whether doing any of that would be less disruptive during class time. The school said that they have received no complaints from parents about the ban, which may have come into being because a sixth grader told teachers she felt uncomfortable when hugged by an older child. However, students claim that the new rule was actually enacted to stop the new trend of group hugging from occurring in the hallways, which the preteens are still allowed to do at lunchtime.

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Brooklyn Prospect Charter School isn’t the first to enforce such a rule; middle schools in Oregon and New Jersey have also banned hugging.

Do you think schools should be hug-free zones or could such a rule stifle the students’ ability to connect with one another?