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Update: This week St. Mary’s County School District has drawn attention from national media for a new policy forbidding parents from hugging students who aren’t their own. Online news sites have also reported on a new rule prohibiting parents to pass out homemade food to any students other than their own. Since reporting this story, the district has issued a statement softening their new guidelines. In a letter to parents, Superintendent of Schools Michael Marirano writes that “local, Washington and Baltimore, national, online media and social networks” have sensationalized the new policies and “St. Mary’s County Public Schools is not banning hugging and homemade treats.”

“However,” he adds, “we are raising the awareness of safety issues and the need to provide more guidance and training to our parents and volunteers.”

Parents can no longer hug kids at St. Mary’s County schools unless they’re their own. (Koichi Saito/amanaimagesRF)

In the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, schools across America are tightening security, putting up fences, installing video surveillance equipment and hiring security guards. The horrific shooting has created an overwhelming uneasiness at schools and some districts, like one in southern Maryland, are looking beyond basic security to make sure they’re doing everything possible to protect their students from harm.

Administrators at St. Mary’s County School District have introduced a long list of new policies meant to create a safer environment for students at its 17 public elementary schools. Many of these rules, such as background checks for non-parent volunteers, are standard and make sense—but one of them, a restriction on hugging, has some people wondering if the district’s staff and community are taking things too far?

Yes, horrible things happen in the world and many people are untrustworthy, but is it so bad that we can no longer allow hugs at school?  Don’t kids need more, not fewer, hugs?

St. Mary’s new policy allows parents to hug their own children but parents and volunteers are forbidden from hugging or touching children who aren’t their own. A parent who is attending lunch recess can’t push a kid who isn’t her own in a swing or help a kid who scraped her knee put on a Band-Aid. If you’re a parent who volunteers at your kids’ elementary school, you know this could be tough, especially when that weepy kindergarten runs up to you and gives you a huge hug because someone just swiped her lunch bag in the cafeteria. But rules are rules, and at St. Mary’s schools you’d have to tell that little girl to step away.

“The fact is that we want to make certain our teachers and our staff are trained in what’s defined as the appropriate touching of a student versus inappropriate touch of a student,” Superintendent Michael Martirano told NBC News.

Based on feedback from parents, principals and school staff, an outline of the new policies was drafted in the fall and finally implemented after news broke about the 20 school children and six adults left dead in the tragic Sandy Hook shooting. The majority of the guidelines are meant to put restrictions around visiting parents and volunteers. Parents are prohibited from bringing younger siblings into school when it’s in session and from approaching teachers for a conference while visiting, according to the SoMdNews.com. District staff wants parents to schedule conferences ahead of time.

Parents who want to attend recess aren’t allowed to play with students other than their own. All school visitors are now required to check in at the front office and have their picture taken by a computer camera. Any volunteer who isn’t a parent must have a background check.

Homemade treats are forbidden because many kids have allergies and parents can now only serve store-bought goodies with clear ingredient lists to students other than their own. Birthday invites can’t be passed out at schools because those students who aren’t invited to a party might feel left out.

“We think it’s the right balance between safety and parental involvement,” Kelly Hall, executive director of elementary schools and Title I, told SoMdNews.com.

Not everyone in St. Mary’s County agrees with the new policies. “I think this is horrible,” board member Cathy Allen told NBC News. “The idea that you can’t go into a school and be hugged by a child, or go in (to) have lunch or be out on the playground and that you can only push the swing for your child and no one else [is unacceptable.]”

Many of these policies are standard in our modern-day world. Most teachers encourage their students to only pass out invitations in class if everyone in the room is invited. And many schools have restrictions around treats brought in from the outside due to the increasing number of kids with allergies.

But, like Allen, I think the rule banning parents and volunteers from interacting with kids at recess is extreme, sad and unnecessary. When kids are in elementary school, especially kindergarten and first grade, it’s common for parents and grandparents to volunteer at lunch and recess because schools are understaffed and desperately need parents to help little hands open milk cartons and peel oranges in the cafeteria, break up squabbles on the play ground, turn jump ropes, apply Band-Aids, and give out hugs. I can’t imagine how a parent would possibly be of assistance on the playground yard without being able to touch a child, give a high-five, help put on a jacket or lift someone up to the jungle gym bars.

Yes, there are horrible people out there who do horrible things but they are the minority and it saddens me that we have to go to the extreme of banning hugs in order to stop these people. As parenting blogger Michele Zip over at Cafe Mom wisely points out, “…a hugging ban isn’t going to prevent someone from doing something sinister … if that’s what this is about. Evil doesn’t follow rules.”

What do you think? Are hugging restrictions at elementary schools ridiculous or necessary?