Public displays of affection (PDA) in local middle schools are met with no love from school policy.

At Mascoutah Middle School in Mascoutah, Ill., a 13-year-old eighth-grade girl received two detentions after giving two friends hugs last week.

While this situation has gained media coverage for being extreme, local DeKalb middle schools have similar policies.

PDA is considered a minor infraction that is dealt with case by case in the structure of the handbook, said Marcus Lewis, assistant principal of Clinton-Rosette Middle School in DeKalb.

It is usually met with a warning, but can lead to a detention or an out-of-school suspension depending on the severity, Lewis said.

“From the administrative perspective, we will not condone that kind of behavior,” Lewis said. “In the public, there is a line of discretion and we try to uphold that here.”

Lewis listed such activities as “kissing, provocative touching and hugging and sexually charged petting” as examples of PDA.

When it came to the Mascoutah case, Lewis said that since he is not too familiar with the case, he cannot comment much, but he said he believes those administrators were trying to emphasize standard behavior.

In regard to hugs in general, Lewis said that it would be up to the administration to look at the nature of the hug. When it becomes more sexual in nature, it is inappropriate.

Huntley Middle School in DeKalb shares the same policy on PDA as Clinton-Rosette Middle School.

“I’ve not seen it as a huge problem in this particular school setting,” said Roger Scott, principal of Huntley Middle School in DeKalb.

Scott said that inappropriate PDA behavior happens rarely and when it does, the teacher is able to address and stop that behavior.

In regard to the Mascoutah case, Scott said there was probably more information behind the story and therefore really hard to put a perspective on it.

“We discourage those type of things in the school setting,” Scott said.

Kathleen Watkins, executive director of Kishwaukee Education Consortium, agreed that it depends on the case.

“On first blush, it seems excessive, but I cannot second-guess another administration,” Watkins said.

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