Students at Danny Jones Middle School have been criticizing the dress code for the past few months, as they feel it is unjust towards them. 

At the beginning of the year, both male and female students had to attend an assembly over the dress code.

Isabelle Tran said she felt the assembly was unfair towards female students.

“The female students’ assembly lasted well over 45 minutes, whilst the boys were gone for like, 10 minutes,” she said. “This just shows how many more policies and rules female students have to abide by.” 

Students are unable to wear clothing items such as ‘off the shoulder tops’ or ‘skirts slightly below fingertip length.’

Tran believes that the school was taking away students’ individuality with these restrictions. 

“Some people see clothing as an outlet to express themselves, and I believe that the school shouldn’t take someone’s independent rights to wear what they want,” she said.

Kristin Thornell, a vice-principal at Danny Jones Middle School, firmly believes that the dress code is a must in every school environment.

She stated that dress codes have been put into place for both students and staff alike in order to promote a general level of professionalism needed in an educational environment.

“For example, if I came to work in a clown suit, students would be laughing at me all day and parents probably wouldn’t be able to focus on whatever we were discussing,” Thornell said. “The dress code is a district policy that all schools are required to enforce.”

Female students are more prone to getting violations, rather than males. 

Thornell has acknowledged the fact that females are given more restrictions to their clothing than males, however she has said that it comes from the fact that female students are given a larger variety of outfits. 

“​There are certainly more restrictions when it comes to girls than boys,” she said. “However, it stems from girls having more clothing options to wear.”

Seventh-grader Jayda Reed believes that the administration shouldn’t be as strict about dress code.

Reed believes that the dress code is unnecessary as students’ break it every single day.

“Now why would my shoulders distract someone?” she said. “It’s literally just a part of my arm. They say the problem is because we girls are wearing some distracting stuff, but the only problem here is the boys thinking we’re distracting.”

Reed believes that the administration should improve the dress code.

Ideas such as being more lenient in their policies, being more understanding, and having an overall wider scope of the students are all measures that Reed suggested.

“Maybe the dress code shouldn’t disappear completely, because it’d just be weird if someone just showed up to school naked,” she said. “”Definitely make it more lenient, though, because I want to wear some cute crop tops without having Mrs. Thornell stop me in the hallways for the millionth time, you know?” 

Seventh-grader Tina Nguyen believes that dress code has made our school environment a better place.

Nguyen thinks that the dress code has been portrayed negatively by media and students, and that the original purpose of the dress code has been forgotten. 

“Students should be taught that dress code is not to deprive them of their self-expression, but rather to shield them from harm,” she said.

Nguyen said that the dress code isn’t necessarily unfair towards female students, but it is instead more overprotective of them. 

She thinks that even though the dress code may seem as though it’s targeted towards females, its true intentions are just to protect them as they are in danger of most harm. 

“In most scenarios, I do not think dress code is unfair,” she said. “However, it is important to note that although the dress code itself may not be unfair, the messaging may be. To elaborate on the latter, many times young girls are told they must follow dress code because they don’t want to be ‘distracting’ rather than to protect themselves.”