There has been an absolute flood of students in our school’s attendance office recently. It feels as if all the students who make trips to the office are mostly there for one reason: dress code violation. With the newly hot weather, students have been dressing in shorter clothing to accommodate the heat. These students, however, fear coming to school because of  the risk of  getting dress-coded. Three of those equal a detention,and who wants that?

Staff have been quite literally camping around campus waiting for students to pass by. These students almost always end up dress coded. While we should always respect our staff, I think we’d all agree that we’d appreciate it if they eased up with the dress coding immensely. Especially because a girl wearing shorts barely under mid-thigh is nowhere near as much of a violation as many young men around campus sagging their pants to the point of revealing their underwear. There are many other issues happening around campus that are major and need to be addressed more than a girl or boy wearing shorter shorts to prevent them from numerous health negatives  such as heat exhaustion, heat stroke, heat cramps, rashes and fainting.

When people are dress coded they hear some variation of the phrase “not mid-thigh.” What is mid-thigh though? I know this may seem pretty self explanatory, but it really is not. This vague description is different for all people, especially girls (though the male population of this school too have faced the unnecessary repercussions of the dress code).  Not to mention there are various lengths of shorts under mid-thigh that are nowhere near “inappropriate” or “promiscuous.” The mid-thigh rule is unreasonable as the goers of this school come in various heights, therefore causing mid-thigh shorts to be very hard to attain, especially if you are of the taller variety. For example, a very tall student who happens to be thin will not find the correct length of shorts that will fit his or her body frame within the dress code. This rule is applicable to other body types as well. Another huge factor to keep in mind when thinking of this mid-thigh rule is that for girls, those shorts are few and far between;they’re very uncommon to find in a clothing store as styles have changed and so have the times. 

So what is the purpose of the dress code? To keep students from expressing themselves? To shame the people wearing shorts because of the weather by saying they’re “too short”? To give students detentions? I must admit, I too don’t know at all. With this I ask for the staff to please be more lenient with this dress code as we are all trying to stay clear of the heat and detention as much as possible.