It’s Friday, 85 degrees outside and the air conditioning is broken. You walk into school comfortably with your tank top and shorts. Before you can even make it to class, a teacher pulls you aside and tells you your clothing is inappropriate and you have to cover up. How would this make you feel? If a girl can wear that exact same outfit to hangout with friends, why can’t she wear it around those same people at school? The SPASH dress code is now considered sexist by many because of how society has changed and given us new norms of the world in the last decade or so. Some of these norms should be carried into school.

While the SPASH dress code may not be the most desirable thing to talk/argue about, it’s still very important that schools all over have dress codes for their students and teachers. One of the main reasons for the dress code is to make students and teachers feel comfortable in the classroom. In some parts of the SPASH dress code reads we are all required to wear undergarments, and to have them “completely covered with outer clothing and not seen.”  I’m not saying that shouldn’t be part of the dress code. 

The point is, teachers shouldn’t be thinking about what students have underneath their clothes; says Reghan Robinson, a junior at SPASH, who is a member of the Feminist Club.  Ms. White says that, “We do not want students to be wearing something that can be a distraction, that equally affects students and teachers. If a teacher is distracted by what a student is wearing then the teachers and students can’t be on task.” Ms. White as a teacher is glad that hats was taken off the school dress code this year, she was sick of telling students they have to take them off. It’s important to note that a student wearing something “distracting”, does not necessarily always mean “revealing”. Her always needing to tell students to remove their hats was a distraction and a delay for class to begin. 

The SPASH dress code is outdated, Mr. Gostomski stated that, “besides language taken out in the last few years the dress code has not been updated in at least ten years.” Thirty years ago, the dress code was to have respect. The dress code that we had thirty years ago was what matched the social norms at the time. The dress code has never fully been rewritten, it should be to match our lifestyles now and the new fashion norms. Many students have been questioning our current dress code. Last spring a survey was sent out to students so the school can start working on a new dress code students and teachers can agree with. They are hoping to have a new dress code written for grades 7-12 by next fall. Their goal is to have a gender-neutral dress code and have the students feel comfortable in what they are wearing.

Reghan Robinson stated that she knows many people at SPASH who should not have been dress coded for what they were wearing. The dress code is used in a shameful way to embarrass people of their body type. The dress code is directed towards girls. Boys will constantly break the dress code and no one will bat an eye. The bias is that the dress code is to keep men comfortable and not keep them “distracted”. The length of your shorts or if your shoulders are showing is not directed towards men. Shoulders are not distracting.