You Have To Admire The Stupidity Of This Principal Who Won't Let A Special Needs Kid Wear A Letterman's Jacket

FTW – On Friday, we shared the story of Michael Kelley, a special needs student attending Wichita East High School. Kelley plays basketball for the school’s special needs team and his parents bought him a letter jacket to wear in school to reflect his participation.

Kelley was forced to remove his jacket and Principal Ken Thiessen offered the following explanation to KSN TV.

“Teachers told the parents they would prefer he not wear the letter on his jacket. We have considered it, and our decision was no. We decided that it is not appropriate in our situation because it is not a varsity level competition.”

Since KSN broke the story, over 40,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org demanding special needs students receive the opportunity to earn school letters, and Thiessen has come under harsh criticism for his handling of the situation.

On Sunday, Thiessen wrote an open letter in which he explains his position, and says that he understood “that taking criticism for my actions and decisions comes with the job.”

He also admonished the “the horrible comments from people who have no idea what East High is really all about.”

From the letter:

Since the Tri-County league was created five years ago, East High has honored student participants with letters and pins celebrating years of participation. I have fully supported the work that has been underway the last nine months by the Tri-County league’s board to develop an athletic lettering program that creates league-wide standards for Tri-County athletes to earn an athletic letter and recommend a letter design. If the league’s recommendation is that the letter looks just like each school’s varsity athletic letter, I can and will support that as well. Yes a comment was made about a year ago to Mr. Kelley’s parent concerning the appropriateness of the letter on the jacket; however he has continued to wear his East High letter jacket in the hallways of our school. Our students work hard to earn the letters, medallions, honor cords and other visible symbols that represent their achievements in high school, and I love to see that school pride displayed in our hallways.

Thiessen ends his letter by challenging those who are familiar with his high school only from his handling of Kelley, to “please take an opportunity to learn about us before you judge us based on one story that originated approximately a year ago.”

Screw this poor kid who only wants to be accepted along with his peers.  These young athletes work hard for those letters that mean absolutely dick after graduation.  The real question here is, why?  Even if Fuhrer Thiessen believes what he is saying, is it really worth pissing off an entire nation over something so trite?  It’s a fucking sports letter.  Who gives a shit?  I hate the PC Police as much as the next person but unless you’re a certified asshole, you let this kid wear his letterman jacket.  It’s the civilized thing to do.

Listen, I love to talk about the days where a flight of stairs didn’t make me want to keel over, but it’s called maturity.  I GUARANTEE this principle regales tales of his glory days whether you ask him or not.  The jackass is essentially a non-funny, worthless Al Bundy that’s 1000000x more of an arrogant dick.