Students in Lake Nona, a gated community in Orlando, Florida, are excited for their new middle school — they're just not excited for its name. The school hasn't opened yet, but it's already sparking controversy with the proposed name Innovation Park Middle School, or IPMS for short.
To add to the jokes kids going to this school will almost certainly endure, the school board has also proposed that the school colors be black, white, and, well, red.
You can see how this might be a problem. And so can the kids' parents. They've started a petition to change the school's name before students even start classes.
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"They don't want to go to a school and wear a red shirt with the letters IPMS across the shirt for athletics, for academic competitions," parent Christal Feldman told a CNN affiliate. "They just don't want to be ridiculed or be made fun of from other students from other schools."
As of writing, nearly 300 people have signed the petition.
"As concerned parents and Lake Nona/Moss Park community members, we are excited and want to be proud of our new Middle School," Chris Clark, who started the petition, wrote on Change.org. "However, we feel the abbreviation of the proposed name - IPMS (Innovation Park Middle School) is a potential disgrace and embarrassment to the students, faculty and school board of Orange County. We respectfully request that you reconsider another name such as Innovation Way Middle School or something similar that will avoid IPMS on shirts, bumper stickers, logos, etc."
Two days ago, the county school board agreed to rethink the school's name, much to the relief of all those concerned parents.
We get it. Kids are cruel sometimes and there's no question that if "IPMS" is scrawled across a bright red shirt they're going to make jokes. PMS makes us think of menstruating, and to kids and some immature adults, having a period is really, really funny. But part of the problem here is that we still think of menstruation as an embarrassing thing, instead of the natural bodily function that it is. We still sneak tampons and pads out of our bags and immediately into our pockets.
So while we understand why these parents would rather the school be named Innovation Way Middle School, what really needs to change is our attitude about "that time of the month."