School is Not the Place for Sexy

So, now it is time for the next confession—my new pet peeve is the dress code at school. With two daughters in high school and one in middle school, we have to sign off on very admirable codes at the beginning of the school year that outline dire consequences for violations of dress code, including the dreaded school sweats. The dress code complicates back-to-school shopping, makes for interesting breakfast arguments about which clothing articles are meant for school, and leads to drama about why you can’t borrow many of Mom’s blouses for school. That is, if you are a parent that feels compelled to comply.

Apparently, much of the world just ignores the dress code. What bugs me is the lack of enforcement. I understand school staff have enough on their hands without checking everyone’s clothing when they walk in the door. However, if you are not going to enforce the policy at least with spot checks, why do you have it? When I drive carpool every morning and see nothing but amazingly short shorts on a whole line of girls, with wrists and the whole hand extending past the shorts, not even making the effort to pretend to worry about fingers extending past, I get a little cranky. It’s fairly obvious that even a small effort at enforcement is not happening. At least conduct some spot checks during the first weeks of school and bust some people. Wake up parents to the need to follow up on their end or they will be getting that phone call. And we all know how rumors spread in school; start a few good ones about what happens if you don’t follow the school rules and let teen fear factor of embarrassment work in your favor.

I actually appreciate the reasons behind dress code. I still remember the middle school boy who went up to a teacher after class and asked for the code to be enforced, because the obviously unenforced cleavage code was distracting and embarrassing him. My children are growing up fast enough without trying to look older than their age and sexy to boot. School is not the place for sexy. As I keep telling my daughters, when you dress like that, it implies you are of age and interested in serious dating. If they really want to marry and settle down, they don’t need to advertise. I still have those preschool betrothals my daughters arranged for themselves on videotape and I’m sure the involved moms are still willing to be my in-laws.

But back to the dress code: Why should I have to jump through all these hoops to make sure my children are within code when you are not going to enforce it?  This is not an academic exercise for a test to make sure students know the subject matter, regardless of whether a teacher actually administers the test.  It’s a pain to comply, especially with today’s fashions and my long-limbed children, and I’m quite honestly tired of the tirades about the hypocrisy as we drive to school every day. Do I need to hear the mockery of some students so far exceeding the dress code they might as well be in a bikini every day?  It’s a bit much. 

So outside of the hypocrisy, which infuriates me, the logistics of trying to comply make me crazy. We start with the object lesson about doing the right thing regardless of what everyone else is doing and no, I am not going to yield on just this one piece because it is so beautiful and you promise never to wear it to school. I know better. Try shopping with long-limbed children and see what I mean. Every pair of decent shorts is suddenly indecent once my daughters extend their hands. A camisole with straps at least one inch wide does not exist, that I can find. And yes, sheer and peek-through patterned blouses are beautiful but made for manhunts, not geometry. Borrowing Mom’s clothes, not an option.  Some of those clothes are my manhunt clothes, for dates with my husband (gotta have a line to defuse the “you are a hypocrite, Mom”).

I really am not trying to be unreasonable. And I say this because I know it can work—one of our high schools has cracked down on PDAs. (For those of you with elementary-aged children, those are public displays of affection.) Most schools don’t bother to enforce restrictions against PDAs. I can drive up to one daughter’s high school and there are kids in lip locks, arms firmly locked around each other and grinding publicly in front of the window to the principal’s office and the school receptionist on a daily basis. Is anyone paying attention? At the school that does enforce it, they cracked down two years ago and it has made a difference in the atmosphere at school. Less of the daytime drama about teen dating angst and more focus on learning, at least during school hours. The principal, who, by the way, has less staff available than our PUSD high school, made a point last year of telling the kids straight up that this was not acceptable. And he meant it. He outlined what behaviors were off limits per the behavior contract and then he enforced it. 

It was a culture shock moment for those high schoolers ... accountability for their non-academic actions was suddenly an issue. And he did it strategically, by staying on top of it for the first few weeks of school and letting rumor work for him. He did it again this year, as I learned in carpool yesterday. A few enforcements at the beginning of the year, rumors spreading about how strict the administration is on this issue, and suddenly students start policing themselves. I know most students do follow the code and I know some kids sneak inappropriate clothes out to change after leaving the house, but please, do we need to legislate common sense? If you have the rules on the books but it’s never enforced, it’s either not needed, not valued, or just a paper token to appease someone. Get off the fence and either enforce it or remove it. So, how about you?