The Anatomy Of A Dress Code

For principals and administrators, spring means a welcome end to snow days and delayed start times. But as the flowers and trees emerge from their winter slumber, so too do short pants, T-shirts, flip-flops and the inevitable battles over what kids can and can't wear to school.

It might as well be called "dress code" season.

Look no further than Quebec for the latest example: Administrators there last month ruled that an 11th-grader's shorts were too short. The student, Lindsey Stocker, then made up posters and placed them around the school in protest. She ended up with a one-day suspension.

A Texas high school last month suspended more than 150 students in a single day. The dress code at Duncanville High School bans hats and hoods inside buildings, requires skirts to be hemmed at the bend of the knee and prohibits "sagging" pants, according to The Dallas Morning News.

And the Internet lit up recently with reports that a Utah high school digitally altered yearbook photos, adding in higher sleeves and necklines to the photos of female students deemed to have showed too much skin.

Many school dress codes also govern hair, grooming and body modifications: In March, a Colorado third-grader who shaved her head to support a friend undergoing cancer treatment violated her school's dress code and was out of school for one day, according to The Los Angeles Times.

School administrators say that its one of the most vexing parts of their jobs, and often puts them in the very difficult position of balancing free expression with the goals of learning.

"It is about that freedom of expression," says G.A. Buie, the principal of Eudora High School in Eudora, Kan. "They want to be individuals; they want to put themselves out there to be noticed. But at the same time, sometimes that can be a disruption to the school. That's where the fine line comes in there."

This year, Buie says, shorts were the big issue in Eudora, a city of 6,100 located east of Lawrence. And there, sometimes there are two issues: one of compliance, and one of good taste.

"Sometimes as an adult, you get almost embarrassed for the kids. That's where some of the challenges come in," he says. For example, "those shorts look OK on this person, but maybe that's not appropriate on someone else."

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The Anatomy Of A Dress Code