Overview

• Principals began greeting students at school entrances this week to inspect uniforms, haircuts and formal salutations under a memo that warns noncompliance is a serious administrative failure.
• President Nayib Bukele amplified the directive on X as part of a discipline push in schools that authorities say gangs once used for recruitment, citing June arrests of more than 40 students in the capital.
• The rules, long on the books but largely unenforced, prompted lines at barbershops and student haircut videos, with principals saying students are corrected but not denied entry.
• A teachers’ union voiced support for clearer authority to impose order while urging changes to child-protection laws it says have complicated school discipline.
• A human rights lawyer warned the requirements could strain low-income families, as the ministry also rolled out weekly “Civic Mondays” from Sept. 1 with a $300 stipend per school for ceremony materials.