We don’t know Soddy-Daisy High School athletic director Jared Hensley, so we can’t characterize his motivation for making the comments he did in a recent video on a school dress code that went viral and resulted in Hamilton County Schools placing him on administrative leave Wednesday.
He may have been joking in trying to make a point about the school’s dress code, or he may have been deadly serious when he said to “blame the girls. Because they pretty much ruin everything.”
Frankly, if Hensley thought that way, we can’t imagine why he would have wanted to be a teacher in classes that generally have as many girls as boys.
But even if he had been joking, his words – as too often happen today – condemned an entire group when he was likely referring a select few who don’t follow the rules. And there are infinitely better ways to get his point across than what he said.
We don’t know what will become of Hensley following his administrative leave, but it would be a tragedy if a teacher/coach who should have used better words to clarify dress code violations, but who by all rights is a supportive and proper educator, is punished in a way that inhibits his way to make a living or denies a school from an effective professional.