Junior Peyton Kelly enters the school building. Her outfit choice of the day consists of black leggings and a t-shirt. She looks both ways as she enters the main hallway: no administrators are to be seen. She continues her walk to class, but stops dead in her tracks at the sight of a teacher. Instead of the expected reprimanding and required outfit change, she is asked how her day is going. Her outfit choice goes unquestioned, and she continues her day, wondering how she slipped by.
“The changes confused me, but I am definitely not complaining,” Kelly said.
As students were welcomed to the new school year, so was the newly designed set of rules for dress code, which now allows leggings and shorter dresses, skirts and shorts to be worn. Students were informed of the changes during the first week of school at a back-to-school assembly.
“I think the new dress code gives students the opportunity to express themselves,” sophomore Alex Tointon said. “I think it will cause even less distraction because there will be less students trying to break the rules.”
While students are now permitted to wear different choices of bottoms, the spaghetti strap ban is still in place, leaving confusion as to what exact clothing is authorized.
“You [used to be able] to only wear leggings in addition to something else that was already within the dress code,” assistant principal Janice Giles said. “There was the mid-thigh rule [for shorts], but as long as you can’t see private body parts or undergarments, there’s not much other change.”
This new change came from the school district’s contemplation of whether dress code rules were too vague to follow, such as the “mid-thigh” rule for shorts and dresses and the “covering the bottom” rule for leggings. The rules were eventually modified, and the standards of dress were appropriately adjusted for them.
Although most students were in favor of the change, some were indifferent or even resistant.
“The [new] dress code can be distracting at times, but for the most part seems pretty fair,” senior Carson Amy said. “It’s better than last year I guess.”
Whether students will use the new dress code to dress more comfortably in warmer temperatures, spice up their outfits, or plainly for comfort, many students agree that the new requirements are much more favorable.
“I like [the new dress code],” sophomore Harper Johnson said. “I think it gives students more freedom. If we didn’t have a dress code at all, students would probably just wear the type of things they wear out or to the mall. That’s just what feels comfortable.”
– Zoe Willard
