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Published On: Tue, Feb 26th, 2013

School officials tell Florida teen, Summer Schreiner, to change her pro-abstinence shirt

Earlier this month, Summer Schreiner, a 15-year-old student at Clearlake Middle School in Cocoa, Fla., was told to change her pro-abstinence t-shirt after officials deemed it “inappropriate.”

TommY Gunn Photography

TommY Gunn Photography

The teen acquired the shirt, which read, ”Don’t drink and park… accidents cause kids,” at a Christian conference she recently attended. But the message was apparently too offensive for education officials.

“I got through lunch, and on my way back, the assistant principal tells me I need to go to the office and change my shirt,” she told WOFL-TV. ”I was pretty upset. I thought it was silly. It’s not like I was wearing a curse word or something that was promoting violence.”

Schreiner got the shirt at “The Silver Ring Thing,” an abstinence conference that is held in cities across the nation. (Here’s a link to their site)

During the event, teens pledge to wait until they’re married to have sex. In exchange for this promise, they get a silver ring.

The family found this particularly humiliating, because they believe Schreiner made a positive life choice at “The Silver Ring Thing” and that the t-shirt she originally wore simply reaffirmed that. In the words of her mother: ”It was really humiliating for her, because she came dressed for success.”

The school district has doubled-down on its decision to force the young girl to change her shirt, citing a dress code policy that disallows any clothing “which contains sexually explicit or oriented wording.”

There is also a restriction on any dress that “infringes on the rights of others.”

The family disagrees that the shirt violates these standards, citing textbooks that educate students with similar messages as what was found on Schreiner’s shirt. District officials, though, remain unmoved by these arguments.

“This is not a situation of whether or not the district agrees or disagrees with sexual abstinence among teenagers,” explained Michele Irwin, director of communications for the district. “It’s about the fact there is sexual innuendo on the shirt, and so we believe it violated our dress code policy.”

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  1. ‘Virginity Rocks’ shirt unacceptable at school, it may be ‘disruptive’ - The Global Dispatch says:

    […] Last year, a Florida school told a girl to change her pro-abstinence shirt, so this isn’t the “first time” – check out that story HERE […]

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