School Colors

Sophomore Samantha Varmer, 15, sports a brown Communication Arts Program tag with a white lanyard, showing that she is a member of one of the prestigious magnet programs at Blair. (By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)

But the principal said freshmen actually suffered fewer hazing incidents this year than last. He doubts the color-coded badges were responsible.

"Every student in here knows who the ninth-graders are," he said. "They don't need an ID to tell them."

Students are required to carry IDs in a wide range of Washington area high schools. But Montgomery Blair is one of just a few that require students to wear them. An informal survey of local school systems uncovered just one other school, Gov. Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, with such a rule.

Montgomery Blair students have been told to wear their IDs for several years, Gainous said. The concept of color-coding arose as a way to link students within the school's five academic academies.

The palette had to be broadened to accommodate this year's seniors, who do not participate in the newly formed academies; freshmen, who have yet to choose academies; students in two magnet programs and in the English-learners program; and staff.

Students were involved in those decisions, Gainous said.

Students in two advanced magnet programs at Montgomery Blair, who are screened for academic ability, say their brown and white badges only alienate them further from a school population already sensitive to such distinctions. Students in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program said they, too, felt singled out; Gainous allowed them to adopt the freshman red.

"A lot of these kids, they just want to keep a low profile and blend in," said Jeanne Philbin, whose daughter, an academically advanced sophomore, has taken to hanging her colored badge from a length of string rather than a color-coded lanyard.

Gainous said he believes that much of the student wrath is directed not at the colored badges so much as the penalties for not wearing them. Under the new rules, a student who leaves a badge at home faces a series of consequences ranging from a verbal warning to an in-school suspension. A student who intentionally defies the rule is considered insubordinate and faces much stricter penalties: detention for the first infraction, suspension for the second.

More than 600 students answered a pair of online polls by the student newspaper assessing the new policy. The largest group of respondents in one poll, nearly two-thirds, declared it a "hideous embarrassment." The opposing view, "awesome," garnered 6 percent.