Samo cracks down on dress code

The new school year brought more than just a new principal and administration with it — the administration also brought a new emphasis to the already existing dress code.In an effort to enforce the dress code, Principal Eva Mayoral created "the four B’s," the four specific body parts or clothing items that should be kept covered up. The four B's stand for boxers; buns or bottoms; breasts and bellies. However, the dress code on boxers also applies to any garment that students wear beneath their pants, shorts or skirts.I-House Principal Florence Culpepper said she stands behind the dress code and the recent enforcement of the policy.“It’s important that when students come to school they look like students and that they know that their focus here is academics,” Culpepper said. “It’s important for us as educators and adults in our kids’ lives to make sure that students understand that there is a time and a place for everything.”According to Culpepper, Samo always had a dress code, but it is being enforced more strictly this year than in previous years. Culpepper said that the administration is also enforcing rules against dress that endorses violence.“It’s not just about skin exposure, it’s also to make sure that if we as a district say that we don’t want students to wear shirts or things that represent hate or violence, then that we as an administrative team are enforcing that,” Culpepper said.However, Cara Vermaak (’15) said that the policy is aimed towards one gender only.“The whole point of the dress code was to confine and control women,” Vermaak said. “I and every other girl have the right to wear what we wish to in order to express or adorn ourselves. The school has no right over that if it doesn't cause direct disturbance to learning or safety.”Vermaak said that she sent a Facebook message to several of her friends after the initial announcement about dress code enforcement was made, discussing how she believed the newly enforced dress code policy to be unfair. Vermaak felt that the dress code was sexist and objectified Samo girls. At the end of her message she asked for others to join her protest by dressing up and exposing all the B’s on the next day of school.“I honestly just planned on expressing our freedom to wear what we wish,” Vermaak said.Cami Khalili (’16) took a course of action different from Vermaak’s. She said she planned to write up her opinions on the dress code and attempted to get people who agreed with her to sign it.“I was going to try and get support from teachers and staff as well,” Khalili said. “I didn’t get very far in my attempts, not because the school got involved, but because the reaction of other students who replied to my original attempt to get other opinions on the matter got out of hand."Khalili still plans to wear what she considers appropriate and hopes the school will agree with her.“I don’t feel as if what I wear is too inappropriate, even though half an inch of my stomach is showing,” Khalili said. “With that in mind, I do completely understand why a school wouldn’t want to allow that."Khalili said that she still feels as though female students are being restricted in what they can and cannot wear.“What I wear is a way of expressing who I am and at this point in my life, I think I should be allowed to make my own decisions on what to wear,” Khalili said.However, according to Culpepper, the administration did not enforce the dress code to with intentions to limit the students’ freedom.“What I don’t want people to think is that it’s all about squashing their own style and personality,” Culpepper said. “You can wear all the trends and still be in the dress code.”cdebeus@thesamohi.com