As long as dress codes have existed, students and parents have questioned them, and with temperatures in the 90s setting area records, finding clothes that are cool and comfortable but meet the dress code can be challenging.

Whether on the hunt for shorts and skirts that are long enough or shirts that cover both shoulders, cleavage and midriff, finding trendy clothing takes patience.

Sophomore Hayden Brawley said shorts going to the knees rule is useless.

“Shorts having to go to the knees rule is stupid because legs or skin is not distracting and no one is looking. If anything, noise is more distracting than someone’s legs,” Brawley said.

Junior Ava Stein has the same issue with the shorts rule; she also said the rule is not enforced equally for boys and girls.
“I don’t agree with the shorts to the knee rule because it would be better if it was to the fingertips because teachers don’t say anything when it comes to the boys,” Stein said.

Junior Madelynn Wells agrees with Stein on the shorts length requirement.

“I wish the requirement for shorts and skirts was fingertips because I could work fingertips, but there is no shorts for girls that go to the knees. With girl shorts it is definitely harder, if it was down to fingertips I could find more options,” Wells said.

Senior Conner Watson sees more girls violating the dress code than boys.

“Personally, the dress code doesn’t really bother me because my shorts are always long enough, and if it’s too cold, I just wear jeans or sweatpants. I’ve seen people get dress coded before, though, for how they dress — even boys for their shorts and that was kind of surprising and odd to me because you don’t get many boys dressed coded. It’s mostly the girls that get dressed coded,” he said.

But senior Doga Karakus does not have any problem adhering to the rules.

“I think the dress code rules are fair enough and appropriate because no one really cares about what you wear and the school is really cold anyway so why does it matter if you can’t show your shoulders. We all wear hoodies no matter what the dress code is,” Karakus said.
Senior Karter Shepherd finds that following the dress code is not a challenge when dressing comfortably.

“I just wear comfortable clothes, and comfortable clothes for me are normally within the school dress code. I just wear the clothes that I am comfortable with,” Shepherd said.

Senior Kylah Guieb suggested the dress code to be aimed at girls significantly more than boys.

“I don’t wear shorts, but I feel like guys will sometimes wear shorts that are too short, but if a girl did that, they would be told to go home and change. The dress code is way more sexualized towards girls because more petitie girls sometimes get away with crop tops, but girls with bigger chest sizes will get called out for it,” Guieb said.

Mrs. Karen Busch, assistant principal, has to deal with dress code violations. She said the 12 item rule list is designed to help students feel more comfortable in the classroom.

“I don’t have a rule that I think is useless or stupid because rules are there for a reason and we want students to feel comfortable and not be judged by others on their appearances,” she said. “I think the dress code is affective because when people are covered up and there’s nothing for people to look and see, everyone is focused on school.”