NEW YORK, NY – It seems as though schools are losing sight of their priorities and don’t have better things to do with their time!
Silly Bandz are the latest kids’ craze and are showing up on kids’ arms all across the nation. Silly Bandz are the stretchy, colorful bracelets that retail for $5 per pack of 24. They are a mere accessory for kids who like to express themselves in odd but entertaining trinkets. The bracelets, aside from being popular, have also become contraband. Schools are not feeling the latest craze and have blacklisted Silly Bandz.
“It’s a distraction,” says Jill Wolborsky, a fourth-grade teacher of the son of a furious parent at an elementary school in Raleigh, N.C.
The school commanded kids to leave at home their collections of rubber band-like bracelets. Other states, such as New York, Texas, Florida and Massachusetts have followed suit and banned the novelties.
Students fiddle with them during class and arrange swaps – trading, say, a bracelet with a mermaid for one with a dragon – when they should be concentrating on schoolwork, teachers say. Sometimes a trade goes bad – kids get buyer’s remorse too – and hard feelings ensue.
“We try not to limit their freedom of expression and what they wear, but when this became a problem, I knew we had to nip it in the bud pretty quickly,” says Karen White, principal of Snow Rogers Elementary School in Gardendale, Ala.
BCP Imports LLC, the small business in Toledo, Ohio, that’s behind the bracelets, was not expecting Silly Bandz to be such a hit. It has increased its workforce from 20 employees to 200 in the past year and just this week added 22 phone lines to keep up with inquiries. The company sells millions of packs a month, and Robert Croak, the president, can still hardly believe the increasing craze for the bracelets.
“They’re getting banned because kids play with them so much,” says Croak, who maintains they’re the right product at the right time, a cost-conscious trinket in tough economic times that can even be a learning tool for little ones, kind of like flexible flash cards.
why are adults so over dramatic about EVERYTHING?
oh my gosh. overreactive adults. they ruin the fun! they're just bracelets! you should let kids wear them. so what if they trade them. no-one had a problem with trading yu-gi-oh cards or those little bakugans!
This next generation is going to have no clue on how to think for themselves. The grownups do all the thinking for them.
This is not a problem. Is healthy for children. Because I do not care about other things that are harmful to children
i think its stupid to put a bunch on your arm 5 is enogh on each arm
OMG!!! They are band at my daughter's school!!! She loves them, too!!!
I think that stupid ungl teachers need to jsut chill let them have their time with silyl bandz u had ur teacher so leave them alone ingl teachers
omg that's stupid what their doing. Their just Bracelets!! i wear them all the time. i really want a teacher to try to take them from me, becuase their not getting them. haha. they aren't banned in my school yet but hopefully they don't….
I don't see why their such a big problem,
If they're that much of a distraction in class then why don't the teachers take away the silly bandz until the end of the day?
I'm sure the bandz don't distract EVERY child.
they should stop worrying about 'silicone bracelets' and focus on something else like bullying and such.
have those teachers ever thought that silly bandz cost money?!? i mean come on, for kids who buy silly bands, 5 dollars can be alot! so, the kid works hard and gets allowance to buy the silly bandz, the kid goes to school, and the teacher takes them! thats like taking the poor kids money! exactly like i <3 silly bandz said, should they worry about worse things? ( i be half of the teachers take the silly bandz and give them to their kids XD!)
[...] the armfuls and trading them with friends. This playful fashion accessory has been causing a little drama in schools – a bit of harmless fun we say! August 24th, 2010 Fashion, Play Sketch Pals [...]
i know and like this teacher at my friends school takes them and cuts them up and there allowed in the school but not in her class……………………..
LOL THIS IS SO WEIRD I DIDNT THINK THAT SOME LITTLE SILLY RUBBER BANDS WOULD CAUSE SO MUCH TROUBLE AMONG CHILDREN IN SCHOOL LOL
I just bought my first pack, I hope my school doesn't ban them! There's this guy in one of my classes and he wears a hundred on each wrist. I just don't think people in my school would stop wearing them just because the teachers are over-reacting.
DOES ANYONE OUT THERE THINK "ENVIRONMENT" WHERE DOES ALL THIS SILLY BANDZ END UP?
I think these teachers are lame if they are a distraction then what they should do is say put them in ur bag and if u have been good then u r aloud to get them out i just think banning them is a terrible my best friends schol banned them and she is so pissed off!
[...] har til og med gått så langt at enkelte skoler har valgt å forby gummistrikkene (!), fordi lærerne mener at dette distraherer [...]