Schools Ban Sunscreen, Inexplicably

I

n the past decade or so, schools have started limiting and banning certain things from their buildings, and while some of the restrictions make sense, the latest banning of sunscreen has us scratching our heads. Why would anyone want to ban sunscreen?

According to a statewide ban in Washington, sunscreen is prohibited from being brought to schools because the formulas contain additives and chemicals that many kids are allergic to. In fact, only one state (California, those progressive hippies!) allows the use of sunscreen in schools without a doctor's note.

Despite the mother's complaints about her daughters' sunburns, she admitted to not using sunscreen on the girls before their field trip.

The problem here though is that in the case of two sisters, Violet and Zoe Michener, the ban led to the girls getting sunburned so badly on a field trip that upon their return home, their mother rushed them to the hospital.

The sisters are fair-skinned and one has a form of albinism, so it stands to reason that they'd be allowed to use sunscreen, right? Unfortunately, it seems like no one will be found "at fault" for this mishap except for the mother—despite her complaints about the lack of sunscreen, she admits that she didn't put sunscreen on the girls before they went, since it was a rainy day (and she apparently never learned that you can still get burned on a cloudy day).

It seems a bit odd to us that sunscreen would be banned outright unless a student brought a doctor's note...wouldn't it make more sense to have notes with the school nurse if a student is allergic rather than bringing in hundreds saying that kids aren't allergic? Or is sunscreen allergy on the rise? Peanuts make sense, since a lot of people have mild allergies, and plenty of people have life-threatening allergies to them, and banning soda from schools seems okay if only because kids don't really need to be drinking cans upon cans of sugarwater every day, but sunscreen seems to be relatively harmless in comparison.

Is anything weird banned at your kid's school?