Number 2 pencil - A clothes call
A Massachusetts middle school enacts a dress code as a reaction to girls who come to lunch in bras and sweatpants:
masslive.com
The new dress code at Michael E. Smith Middle School that seeks to limit the amount of skin pupils may bare in class had its genesis last year after some female students fell out of their tops. "We had girls fall out of their shirts in the sixth grade," principal Melodie L. Goodwin said during a recent interview at the school about the code, which takes effect March 21...
The principal said for some reason pupils began wearing much more revealing clothes to school starting last spring, something about which parents may be ignorant because many youngsters leave home with a hooded, zippered top under which they may be wearing a halter top. Pupils also started rolling down their sweat pants at school, revealing the tops of their buttocks, as well as not wearing brassieres or underpants and traipsing around in stiletto heels.
"This year we had a young lady come into the cafeteria with only a bra and sweat pants on," Goodwin said. "Her mom agreed it was very inappropriate."
One would hope. Stiletto heels? Bras without tops? In middle school? Not only is the dress code needed, but so is a good selection of schoolmarm-ish clothes from the bargain bin, to be kept in the principal's office and handed over to any girl foolish enough to think a bra is outerwear.
To help the cause, the school's student council will hold a fashion show in March or April featuring clothes appropriate for the classroom.
Great idea.
The new code bans flip-flops, high heels, hats, caps, bandannas, clothing items that have "obscenities, fighting words, incitement or defamation on them" and clothes that are "sexually suggestive and therefore distracting to learning and inappropriate for school."
The code requires that shorts and skirts reach the fingertips of the person wearing them when the person's arms are at his or her side. No underwear should be showing and spaghetti straps and halter tops are not allowed. All shirts must cover the skin between the bottom of a shirt and the top of a skirt, shorts or pants.
By not limiting free speech, the dress code avoids the possible lawsuits from those who insist on the right to wear sexually-suggestive messages on t-shirts. Between those kinds of lawsuits and the clothing that today's "role models" wear, I feel for any administrator who attempts to impose modesty in the classroom. It's not an easy job. |
