Schools want a ban on Silly Bandz bracelets

They're cute, rubbery and come in all shapes and colors from penguins to baseball bats. But some educators on Long Island are telling students to keep their Silly Bandz bracelets out of the classroom.

"Silly Bandz are here!" Lisa Farrell, principal of Duffield Elementary School in Ronkonkoma, wrote in a recent letter sent home to parents. "They are very cute and the kids love them. I like them too. At times they are distracting and teachers have asked that students not play with them, trade them or show them during class time."

They've become so distracting, in fact, that some schools have prohibited them from the classroom, and others have outright banned them from buildings. Silly Bandz are one brand, but the popular rubber bracelets are also sold under other brand names.

Their appeal appears universal. They're popular with boys and girls of a wide variety of ages, said Lisa Hodes, owner of Sweeties Candy Cottage in Huntington, which started selling them earlier this year. A typical pack contains 12 bands and sells for between $2.50 and $2.99 at her store.

"It's unbelievable, I never had this much traffic in my five years of owning this store," Hodes said.

Quinn Blackburn, 9, a fourth-grader at Jack Abrams Intermediate School in Huntington, has at least 80 bracelets. "I like how the bracelets go back into shape when you take them off," he said.

The bands are not banned at his school, but his brother, Cole, who goes to the same school and is in sixth grade, said there are restrictions on when you can play with them.

Bandz fan Jeremy King, 9, of Huntington, said he thinks it's unfair some schools are banning the bracelets. "I wouldn't like that to be in our school because I really like them," he said.

His mother, Donna King, said the Bandz appeal to her children, ages 15, 12 and 9. "They really are harmless," she said.

A representative for Brainchild Productions, the maker of Silly Bandz, did not return a request for comment.

The principal at Birch Lane Elementary in Massapequa recently sent a letter to parents recommending they refrain from allowing their children to wear the bands to school because they were becoming a distraction.

The Deer Park School District has banned Silly Bandz at the John F. Kennedy Intermediate School, which serves grades three to five, Superintendent Eva Demyen said in a recent statement.

"These popular rubber bracelets are being prohibited because they are a distraction to instruction and a safety concern. This decision enforces our goal to provide and maintain a safe atmosphere of academic integrity," she said.

Several schools in the Commack district have banned the bands, with educators saying they can be a distraction in class where students want to trade them and sometimes they flick them at one another.

"Anything with trading becomes an issue and an area of concern," said Katherine M. Rihm, principal of North Ridge Primary School in Commack. She sent a note home to parents last month asking them to not send children to school with the bands.Parents and students had complied.

Farrell, whose school is in the Connetquot district, wrote in her letter to parents that students were wearing too many of the bracelets and complaining of finger cramping when showing up at the school nurse and "often their fingers are white due to poor circulation."

She asked parents to speak to children about not sharing or trading the bands and to monitor how many they wear. "Beyond the wrist is causing a problem," she wrote.