A middle school in Milford, CT has banned physical contact — all physical contact.

A Connecticut middle school principal has laid down the law: You put your hands on someone — anyone — in any way, you’re going to pay.

A violent incident that put one student in the hospital has officials at the Milford school implementing a “no touching” policy, according to a letter written by the school’s principal.

East Shore Middle School parents said the change came after a student was sent to the hospital after being struck in the groin.

Principal Catherine Williams sent out a letter earlier in the week telling parents recent behavior has seriously impacted the safety and learning at the school.

“Observed behaviors of concern recently exhibited include kicking others in the groin area, grabbing and touching of others in personal areas, hugging and horseplay. Physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment,” Williams wrote.

Students and parents are outraged. They said the new policy means no high-fives and hugs, as well as horseplay of any kind. The consequences could be dire, Williams warned in the letter.

“Potential consequences and disciplinary action may include parent conferences, detention, suspension and/or a request for expulsion from school,” Williams wrote.

One kid is protesting this ridiculous rule, and so will be showing up at school — no joke — wrapped in blue duct tape! This kid is my new hero.

Eighth-grader Patrick Abbazia, 14, said East Shore staff members strictly forbade any touching, and he’s going “to make a stand against this rule.

“I have incidents all day long where I’m told, ‘Don’t touch whatsoever,’ ” he said. “I even have a couple of teachers who’ve pulled me aside and said, ‘Don’t high five, I’ll have to report you.’ Even a pat on the back has gotten to the point where teachers are questioning it. I feel less safe walking through the halls than I did when people were pushing. The rule itself is way out of hand.”

So Abbazia decided to follow through on his mother’s idea and tape his arms to his body at the elbow with duct tape as an act of protest. He said if any teachers object, he’ll tell them to call his mother.

Abbazia’s father, Edward, said he and his wife were concerned when they read the letter because it seemed to outlaw the kind of touching that young people — and humans in general — need to relate to each other.

“As a parent, I just don’t agree with it,” he said. “This is going to happen — they’re going to touch each other. My son’s going to physically touch his friend, you know, shake his hand or pat him on the back, and he’s going to get detention and he knows it, but he’s going to do it anyway. He’s got a very social life. The letter that came home to me, I think it’s directly pointed at my son and not only my son, but all of the kids who would do things like this on a regular basis — the high fives, the hugging.”

The senior Abbazia said he witnessed many fights in his days as a student at Foran High School but never saw the repercussions spill out to the entire school.

“The people making these rules have lost sight of what’s really important — you know, learning, skills that you can take with you “¦ interacting with each other and getting along with each other,” he said.

First of all, kids are going to fight. It’s just going to happen; it’s a part of growing up. That doesn’t mean that school officials should just let teens slug it out in the courtyard or not punish students for fighting, but acting as if you can somehow keep teenagers from fighting by banning all physical contact is ludicrous. And then, to make it even more ludicrous, the idiotic principal even lumped in seemingly innocuous things like hugs and high-fives! This is yet another example of liberalism in our schools run amok. When someone does something wrong, conservatives hold the person accountable. Liberals go after the “root cause”, thinking they can stamp out things they don’t like. It’s like the thought that you can keep crime rates low by banning weapons. It’s stupid and an incredibly immature thought pattern. But yet, it’s still happening.

Thank God there’s at least one kid there who thinks enough for himself to show the stupidity of this new rule. I’m sure it will be overturned as parent backlash grows, but all the same… the fact that it even could be implemented to begin with is a sad commentary in and of itself.