According to senior Lia Werner, her initial reaction to hearing about the changes wasn’t very strong. Werner said she didn’t believe the administration and staff were going to be strict about the dress code.
“Last year they focused a lot on girls on their tank tops and no showing shoulders,” Werner said. “This year they were really concerned about short shorts on girls and leggings and yoga pants and such.”
Though she is unsure why the school started enforcing the dress code more, Werner said she was able to understand their reasoning for the dress code. However, Werner said, she believes people should know their own body type and what is appropriate to wear for that body type.
“I feel like it’s a little degrading to have someone come up to you and tell you that you look wrong or inappropriate in my opinion,” Werner said. “I don’t think someone else has the right to tell you that you don’t look good. Girls are already insecure about their bodies but if someone came up and said, ‘Hey that doesn’t look right on you,’ that could actually be more offensive than wearing [the clothes].”
The consequence for inappropriate clothing is to change, and if a student is unable to produce a change of clothes at school they are sent home. According to Werner, she was one of these students sent home to change her shorts.
“Honestly, I kind of thought it was a little much because they weren’t really that short of shorts in my opinion,” Werner said. “I thought it wasn’t really fair because they can’t send home every single student ad so I kind of felt like it wasn’t fair they sent me. If they’re going to send just one person they should have to send everybody.”
These new enforcements also proved to be a problem for activities in the school that wear uniforms on game days. According to junior cheerleader Caroline Shannon, like Werner, she did not believe the dress code would last and that the administration would change it.
“Then, I don’t know,” Shannon, said. “They started being really strict so I was kind of upset about it, but now I really understand it’s modesty so I agree with it.”
According to Shannon, in previous years the cheerleaders had to wear their crop tops underneath their uniform, but pants or leggings were optional. This year, Shannon said, it is required that the cheerleaders were pants or leggings underneath. Shannon said this rule only applies during the school day however, and they do not have to wear the pants or crop tops during performances.
“At first I thought it was stupid,” Shannon said. “I thought [the administration] should base their rule on if the skirt is long enough and stuff. But now I understand it’s like a message. If you see one cheerleader with too short of a skirt, then you judge all of them so the dress code is actually an OK thing.”
