Samo dress code to be revised, strictly enforced

Evan KahnCopy EditorA young girl sprints toward the Michigan Gate in accordance with the tardy bell. H-House Principal Leslie Wells stands just inside the gate, walkie-talkie at the ready, as the girl flashes her ID at the security guard. He surveys her outfit — a shirt-dress and tights — and as she runs by … oh my.He stops her as she passes, and bends down toward her ear to whisper. “Honey … you need to pull down your skirt. We can see your hoo-hah.” She was wearing no underwear.“Of course she was embarrassed,” Wells said. “But had I let her walk around like that, she would’ve been more than a little embarrassed.”Although this is a fairly extreme example, Samo’s administration has recently been cracking down on school dress code violations, which range from clothing depicting “violent images,” drugs or gang-related paraphernalia to sexually explicit representations or “obscene, libelous or slanderous” expressions. They also seek to cooperate with ASB and different parents to revise the code.“Any time we start getting close to Halloween, we start becoming more aware of what people wear,” I-House Principal Renée Semik said. “Everything culminated at this year’s pep rally and Halloween. When I first got here six years ago, it didn’t feel like I saw as much skin from young women and boxers from young men. This isn’t the time nor place for that.”A teacher sent out an email to her colleagues, voicing her disapproval of “girls running around the campus … half-naked claiming school spirit in sports bras and undershorts” the day of the last pep rally. Other teachers took up the cry, and soon the administration took the torch.“At Lincoln, the dress code was very explicit, and enforced by all adults on campus,” said English teacher Kristine Haenschke, who used to work at the middle school. “For girls, no midriffs showing, no spaghetti straps and shirts and skirts have to be a certain length; guys couldn’t sag. In class, no hats for anybody. If one lets little things like dress code slide, then bigger problems creep in.”Wells makes the point that violations of the dress code tend to disrupt the school setting.“If a young lady is sitting in class and she needs to keep standing up to pull down her skirt, then she’s disrupting the learning process,” he said.However, when asked if other students’ outfits in class have ever distracted him, junior Gus Graef is “indifferent.”“At this point, it’s more regular for girls to wear skimpy clothes than it is for the to wear more conservative outfits,” he said. “So no, it doesn’t distract me all that much. Now, if a girl’s wearing, like, nothing, then of course it’s distracting.”Regardless of whether or not certain outfits are distracting, Semik asserts that strengthening the dress code is a logical solution to an organic problem.“I don’t think anyone wants to stifle creativity or fashion, but high school kids are students first, and fashionistas second,” she said.ekahn@thesamohi.com