Essay on A Fight Aganist Public Schools Strict Dress Codes

The belief that public schools should enforce strict dress codes has been the topic of many controversial and heated debates throughout history. Although it is uncommon for public schools to require uniforms, every school has some type of dress code. Elizabeth Forward High School in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, is no different than the rest of the nation. When caught violating the dress code, some teachers will choose to ignore it, whereas others will send the student to the high school office. If sent to the office, students are penalized with a day of in-school suspension instead of being allowed to call for a change of clothes. At first glance, the prohibition of tank tops, jeans with holes above the knee, and shorts and skirts shorter than†¦show more content†¦Another major problem is the fact that tank tops are even banned in physical education classes. Students are allowed to wear sweat pants in the winter months to keep themselves warm, but get points deducted if they dec ide to wear a tank top on a day that the class spends forty minutes on the football field in the smoldering summer sun. I think that if the school were to become more lenient on the tank top rule, students will feel more comfortable in the school during the warmer months, and they will spend less time complaining about the heat, allowing more ability to focus on schoolwork. In 2009, Elizabeth Forward banned students from wearing jeans with holes in them. When the new rule was put into affect, students started a chain text message suggesting that everyone wear jeans with holes in them the next day. When the teachers and administration learned about the plan, they threatened the students with in-school suspension each day they wore torn-up jeans; this did not stop the students. The students believed that if enough of their peers participated, they could not be given in-school suspension simply because they could not fit everyone in the in-school suspension room. However, when nearly t wo hundred students showed up to school in ripped up jeans, the faculty was forced to crack down and send anybody with even the slightest fraying to the office. Because there were so many rule-breakers, the administration moved everybody out of the in-school