NEWS

Girls Made To Wear Trash-Bag Skirts As Punishment

NEW YORK, 1:15 p.m. EDT September 19, 2003 - Two Bronx girls reportedly had to wear skirts made of trash bags to class as a punishment for coming to school in jeans rather than their uniforms. The sixth-graders at the Bronx Preparatory Charter School were made to wear the bags by principal Marina Bernard Damiba. Damiba called the garbage-bag skirts "Damiba fashions" and said theyweren't meant to be humiliating. "It was more of a fun way to say, 'Listen, guys, wear the uniforms,"' she said. "Let's not dwell on something as simple as wearing the uniforms when we have a lot of business to take care of. We have a lot of learning to get done." Joy Vasquez, whose daughter, 12-year-old Christina Zuniga, was one of the girls who wore the skirts, at first said the punishment was "really wrong." But after meeting with Damiba, she said that her daughter "got a lesson out of it." Students at the school are required to wear a polo shirt with the school's logo and khaki, black, gray or navy blue pants or skirts that are at least knee-length.