kfor.comHey, if you've just been trolling the Internet today looking to be infuriated by some slut-shaming, name-calling and just sheer idiocy, look no further. We've got the story for you.
According to KFOR News, Noble High School in Oklahoma is having some serious problems. As if the first day of school isn't miserable enough already, superintendent Ronda Bass allegedly sent home a group of crying and humiliated teenage girls.
"As I was greeting the children coming in, I knew we had a major, major problem on our hands," said Bass.
Stephanie Stewart, a senior at the school, said things took a turn for the worse when Bass had a sit-down with the students at the end of the day about their wardrobe choices.
According to Bass, "The first question I asked was, 'How many of you in here believe that there are female students on the campus today that are dressed completely inappropriate [sic]?' Most of their hands went up."
But Stewart might have remembered that conversation a little differently.
"The first sentence was, ‘Have y'all ever seen any ‘skanks' around this school?'… Around the end she said, ‘I don't want to see anyone's ass hanging out of their shorts,'" said Stewart.
KFOR News asked Bass if she did, indeed, use those words. Her ridiculous (and indirectly affirming) response? "I knew that students from other towns were calling our girls really negative names. The message I wanted to send to them was I don't want them to be called those names. I want us to be known as the classy lady Bears."
Oh, we're sorry, we didn't realize that because other schools may be calling your female students offensive names, you could use those same words.
According to Stewart, Bass followed up the next day by asking the girls to stand up while she did a dress code check. She even supposedly asked some of the girls to bend over. Stewart says she was singled out because according to Bass, her dress was too short.
"If you're not comfortable with bending over, we might have a problem," Bass told KFOR. We're sorry to have to point this out, Ms. Bass, but a demand to "bend over" in front of an audience of our peers would make anyone feel extremely uncomfortable.
"A lot of girls actually felt humiliated. You could see it in their faces that they were," said Stewart.
Apparently, Bass also may have sent out a school-wide email to teachers, which read: "Our female students are pushing the limits. We all know this to be true…Please help us stay on top of this until a new norm of modesty is established."
We repeat: "a norm of modesty."
Bass is a self-proclaimed protective superintendent. "I am very proud to be known as 'Mama Bear Bass,'" she said.
Apparently, "Mama Bear" duties have shifted in recent years. They now include: humiliating students in front of their peers, dictating how they should and should not dress and referring to their reputations using derogatory terms.
We can recognize the desire to regulate a school environment a little bit and trying to keep students safe. Dress codes are completely normal (and we're big enough to admit we don't really understand the lower butt-cleavage trend, either). But in trying to create respect for her female students, Bass apparently belittled them.
Bass is standing by the way she addressed students and told KFOR she believes she did the right thing.