Dress code can be a very serious topic to most students. The dress code targets students since it is mandatory to wear uniforms. There have recently been problems with the students following the dress code, particularly girls and boys rolling up their shorts.
The school shorts have evolved over the years to make it harder for students to roll them up. The shorts went from being super stretchy and comfortable to being a discomfortable material and a disliked length. The brand that our school used to use for our shorts was Dickies. This has now been modified to another brand, called Universal. The brand Universal has been used for the past 2 years, yet in the dress code on the schools website, they have not changed the brand, so why should students get in trouble for wearing this type of shorts?
Starting last week, on October 21st, some of the school administrators have stood in the main lobby handing out detention slips to the students. Their reasoning for doing so are students rolling up their shorts, wearing tight shorts, and if they wear a type of slipper shoes. While these are good reasons for handing out detentions, almost all the students in this school have at least 1 detention now. After they get in trouble, they are told to not wear them again, meaning they have to buy new ones. Parents may not have the money to be wasting on school shorts when the ones they already have fit them just fine.
Students have very strong feelings about this topic. Let’s see what they have to say. According to freshman Valerie Zea, “It is so annoying. As soon as I walk into the building I get dress-coded for my shorts being too tight and short, when they were just a little above my finger tips”. If this were to happen to me, it would for sure ruin my mood. Sophomore Constanza Delgado said she saw a 7th grade girl get detention after already being in the building, meaning the teachers who saw her walk in with the shorts were okay with the length. She expresses, “Some teachers go above and beyond to dress code, specifically girls, when it’s never that big of a deal, she’s only 12!”
In advance, the school shorts sizes are unique, they aren’t like your regular jean shorts at the mall. Most problems girls are facing are having the shorts fit their thighs and being too big on their waist, or the other way around. They have made these shorts impossible to fit someone perfectly. If you have skinnier legs, the shorts may be a shorter length, and if you have thicker thighs the shorts may reach all the way down to the knees, which leads people to roll up the shorts. At the end of the day, it should be understandable, because even though school is not a fashion show, students should not feel uncomfortable with the uniform.
While the dress code is here to promote a respectful learning environment, it can lead to unwanted issues, like students rolling up their shorts, rather than just leaving them how they are. Some students got saved by wearing pants this week, but the school is slowly becoming stricter with the dress code. If the students keep causing problems, these punishments will get harsher.
