High School Dress Codes example essay topic

657 words
As a teenager, clothing is a very large role in your life. After all, your style portrays your personality and the crowd that you hang out with. Most teens spend nearly all of their income on buying the next fashion. But today, teens have to second think their purchases for they may not be able to wear them at their school. Public schools have begun to crack down on the dress code, causing high school students to have to ditch half their wardrobe. The public school dress code is questionable in that is the wardrobe of students really affecting the way they learn and act, and are some of the codes really necessary.

School officials believe that the way students dress affect their demeanor in class. However, if a girl is sitting at her desk taking notes on her teachers lecture, how can the length of her skirt affect her or others learning capabilities? What if this girl has long legs, and the skirt automatically appears short on her because of this, should she be forced to buy bigger sizes to accommodate the longer length, yet have the skirt basically fall off at the waist? So to reprimand the girl, the school principle will send her home for the day because they believe her clothing is affecting the learning atmosphere.

However, sending her home is also affecting her learning. Most high school students would love to be forced to leave school anyway, so the punishment is really quite contradicting. High school students wear clothing that they feel comfortable in. If their parents allow them to leave the house in what they choose to wear, why should the school tell them that what they wear in unacceptable. After all, if their parents choose to purchase the clothing for their kids to wear, then that is their business, and no one else's. At Chesapeake High School in Anne Arundel County, the dress code is very highly enforced and strict.

Some of the dress code violations are a little over the top. For instance, girls cannot wear tank tops or halter-tops. How is a girl's upper back being shown really affecting the school? Another code is that a bra cannot be seen from outside her clothing. This is breaking some women's rights issues.

There is nothing wrong with a bra strap sticking out of a shirt. This is definitely not affecting the way students learn. Just a few years ago, No hats were included in the long list of dress code violations. At Chesapeake High School, a student had gone through chemotherapy for leukemia, and in result lost all of his hair. He was then allowed to wear a hat in school. As if the boy had enough in his life already, he had to carry around a doctor note with him, as he was consistently stopped in the hall way for breaking this dress code.

Many of times, the teacher would not believe the boys story, and would proceed to argue with him in the hallway. Wear a simple baseball cap can certainly not be that much of a distraction to make such a large ordeal of the whole issue. High school dress codes have caused a huge debate among students who do not understand the reasons for the codes, which are enforced. In turn, many student keep wearing what they choose, and suffer the consequences as part of rebellion. This is sure not what school officials hoped to result as part of the enforcement of the dress code. Yet as the years go on, more and more rules are set to the dress code making them stricter and stricter as school officials feel that what students wear affects the learning environment and they way students act.