Said one dad, who — can you figure this out? — doesn't support the enforcement of the dress code and is thinking of suing the school because "Scarmato is a total control freak." Scarmato is Joseph Scarmato, the new principal of Tottenville High School in Staten Island, who exercised his discretion to impose a new "Dress for Success" policy that put 200 students, mostly girls, in detention. Currently, we're told, the students are in rebellion.
I think there should be a dress code and the parents should support the principal, but I confess that when I was a teenager, I was the first girl in line to break the dress code. The issue back then wasn't shorts. We girls weren't even allowed to wear pants (including the new "pantsuits" for females that had just become stylish and that nowadays a woman is considered perfectly dressed up in and could even wear to deliver the State of the Union Address). In 1965, the issue was miniskirts, and the requirement was that the skirt reach midknee. Do you have any idea how unfashionable that looked at that time?
Why, I remember the vice principal, to whose office I'd been sent, musing out loud about the difficulties these skirts caused for the boys and what would happen if the girls came to school in bikinis. I found that exasperating, because the school was requiring me to wear a skirt. I wasn't attempting to wear a less-appropriate item of clothing to school. Let me wear pants if the issue is the sexual troubling of the boys. But don't make me wear a skirt and force me to wear a bad-looking skirt.
See? I'm still arguing with the vice principal from 50 years ago, so you might think I should support these booty-shorts girls. But I don't. They have plenty of stylish choices to make within the range of what is permitted and shows a decent respect for the classroom. I hear that the school isn't air-conditioned, but it can't be especially comfortable to have the bare flesh of the entire length of the back of your thighs sticking to the chairs all day.
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I'd be fine with school uniforms--simplifies the issue and spares kids the idiotic social hierarchy of trying to outdo one another with the way they're dressed (they can go back to their other idiotic social hierarchies).
There should be some flexibility for comfort though--requiring long pants and sleeves on hot days is cruel. But there's a lot of room between dressing comfortably and dressing inappropriately.
I don't really understand why the parents would take their kid's side in this--do they want their daughters dressed scantily? That seems a bit creepy. Someone call Chris Hansen!
Tottenville. "Town of the dead."
Sounds lovely.
We wore school uniforms -- they let the girls wear uniform pants (trousers) one year -- then outlawed them the next because they were "showing the girls curves."
Catholic school, that is -- not Islamic. :)
The code doesn’t just cover tank tops and short-shorts, but miniskirts, leggings, skinny jeans, headbands, halter tops, sweats, hats, hoodies, sunglasses and more.
Strictly from a fashion standpoint I'm no fan of headbands and skinny jeans but banning them seems a bit over the top.
Reason #5120454 to support vouchers: in a public school, these issues are always going to be political. In a private voucher school, they're free to impose a dress code if they wish, because you're free to go elsewhere.
The problem with schools is the Religion of Political Correctness. PC isn't like a religion.
It literally IS a religion. It has it's own Dogma and its own Heretics which must be publicly destroyed for Hate Thoughts.
Why isn't anyone pointing this out?
Teenagers just don't like being told what to do, even if it's practical or rational. Popular culture reinforces this attitude; so has it been ever since the marketing world invented the "teenager," post-WW2.
It's fascinating to see the momentum and buildup of generational conservatism. I hope people know that negative or positive progress (i.e. monotonic change) is an artificial construct. The actual process is chaotic with foreseeable but unpredictable cycles, motivated by our notorious inability to reconcile diverse interests except over short durations. The minor perturbations notwithstanding, this too will be left for a future/surviving generation.
Why isn't anyone pointing this out?
I think it's happening already. It is just a slow process through withdrawl.
I've heard parents of teenage daughters explain to me for the last 45 days the amount of time their kids worry about clothing and the latest trends for school. Screw that. They're wearing uniforms even if it is homeschool.
Kids should wear uniforms. My youngest has worn a uniform every day of his academic life, including coat and tie one day a week. Private school because I love him.
Jason Hops:
Exactly. Religion and faith are separable. The former is a moral philosophy, which is always, but coincidentally, accompanied by faith and tradition. Political Correctness is a religion based on a tenet of selectivity, which is what predisposes it to violate civil and human rights, and generally sponsor corruption: progressive corruption.
A tank top isn't going to keep you cooler when you have your feet and legs covered by extra high Chucks.
My daughter graduated from high school last year. Her school didn't allow girls to wear sleeveless tops. This isn't just tank tops. It kept her from wearing sleeveless blouses and dresses that I think would have been appropriate to wear to church but weren't acceptable for school.
Skirts and shorts had to come down to within a couple of inches of the knee.(Do you know how hard it is to find girl's shorts that long?)
I think the dress codes tend to go too far. I don't know if it's because the people who are suggesting that girls need to be covered to keep from distracting boys are some kind of creeper who are themselves distracted (as if this keeps boys from being distracted by girls anyway) or if it's because they want to avoid making any kind of judgement calls. The same item of clothing can go from appropriate to inappropriate depending on the body shape of the person wearing it.
Will Cate:
Generational rebels. Most people outgrow this stage of evolution, and seek a stable state. The remaining are perturbations which are either inconsequential, moderated, or subversive.
Jason beat me to it.
Although, I was thinking zombies, but couldn't tie it all together.
The best answer would be to instsitute strict dress codes, and eliminate co-ed education after the sixth grade.
Girls today have no concept of modesty, and most boys have no concept of morality.
Sometime between junior high and high school my county's school dress code disappeared. We wore jeans and t-shirts and that was fine. What stands out to me in retrospect, though, is that the dress code also disappeared for the teachers. Most of them wore jeans and t-shirts as well. It was a profoundly unserious time and I didn't get the education that I'd hoped to get.
n.n,
Yes, and not every religion requires a God. Mao pushed an ideology that was basically a religion.
When you hear kids traumatized by the thought that The End is Near (due to Man's Evil impact on the Environment), I think you are dealing with a religion.
A creepy PC religion to be sure.
n. n. --
I don't know; some of them grow up to become quite consequential indeed!
They should all wear full-on burkas.
Nothing is worse than a principal with an axe to grind.
The dress code for my high school in the 1970s was "Don't show up naked."
My kids' junior high dress code was fairly extreme and would have kept the vice principals so busy that the school actual hired "trackers" to, according the vice-principal, make sure the place didn't turn into Lord of the Flies (he actually said that to me during a daughter related visit.)
Yet, my kids' high schools, in my very conservative town, essentially had a dress code similar to the one I knew; "Don't show up naked." They had no problems.
One thing that always surprised me is how much the students dressed like most the students when I was in high school--jeans and T-Shirt with some girls wearing non-flashy dresses. The biggest difference was the hair with the modern styles being more conservative than those I grew up.
(My oldest son turned out to be one of the most radical students in that he grew his hair to shoulder length and often wore one green shoe and one red sneaker. Even then, nobody cared.)
In the story there is a picture of a girl openly defying the dress code.I say cut her some slack.Next year after she graduates she will be wearing her Burger King uniform.
District 31 Superintendent Aimee Horowitz, who oversees Tottenville, said in a statement to The Post that skimpy clothing is banned because it “creates a distraction, is dangerous or interferes with the learning and teaching process.”
Hopelessly vague. And it is the same rationale behind burkas. Can't have men be distracted by the sight of female flesh, now can we?
Teach my kid to read, Mrs. Kerbopple. Keeping her off the pole is my job.
If we get to the point that you're doing *your* job well and thoroughly for every kid in the schoolhouse, then we can talk about you taking on some of *my* jobs. But we all know that shit ain't happenin' don't we?
So it's now a Vo-doh-dee-oh-doh Tech school?
School ought to be segregated. Put the boys in one school and the girls in another.
Problem solved.
What is the rule against females being attractive. When I was that age it only made me excel in school to impress the best babes.
I suspect the older male Administrators are just afraid of competing with and losing to young guys, so they prohibit the existence of sexual attraction among teens. Good luck with that use of power.
For guys in the sixties, it was long hair. At my high school it had to be shorter than collar length, and they enforced it. Finally, in my senior year they tossed the rule, and allowed shorts also. We felt like we had won a great victory.
We used to joke about how badly we would have to dress to get kicked out of my high school for a dress code violation (I think as long as you weren't wearing obvious gang symbols or clothing you were ok).
The code doesn’t just cover tank tops and short-shorts, but miniskirts, leggings, skinny jeans, headbands, halter tops, sweats, hats, hoodies, sunglasses and more.
I kind of don't know what the girls are supposed to wear. Business casual?
Also, what on earth is wrong with headbands???? Why is a male principal making that minute a judgement on hair accessories?
I was once sent home for a pair of mid-thigh khaki shorts that would have been appropriate at a corporate golf outing. It was the first or second day of school, so the enforcement was strict. I wore the same shorts often to school after that and never had a problem.
College rape is the cause celebre --- and common sense to limit the risk of underage "sexual assault" is attacked by the parents of girls.
Yeah...serious issue. Really.
I do a youth ministry at my church for 3 and 4th graders and girls have come in wearing shorts that barely cover butt cheeks. I'm hardly a prude, but the shorts dancers wear for dancing don't belong in a church, yet there are plenty of parents who do not agree with me. We try to be informal, but a bit of decorum, please.
A lot of adults don't get just how skanky a LOT of young girls dress these days --- and it blows my mind that it is parents who seem to support it.
I don't get the mentality of putting your valuables next to an open window to combat theft, but I'm not Progressive like that.
Why on earth does if make sense to ban headbands and hoodies? Is it even possible to purchase a zip-up sweatshirt or light windbreaker that someone wouldn't call a hoodie? I literally never see them without hoods anymore.
Also skinny jeans are only tighter than most teenage-girl bootcuts at the calf and ankle. Are calves and ankles the new hawtness or something?
If sweats are not allowed in classes other than PE (I assume because they are sloppy) why are gym shorts required to be worn in all classes if you break dress code? A business casual outfit could be sleeveless, but if a girl shows up in that, they make her wear gym clothes? That's bizarre to me because one thing I really like about dress codes/uniforms is the way it sets work apart from play. If you force kids to work in play clothes, you'll get bad results.
Bah. Give em uniforms. Khaki and polo or business casual.
The girls I knew in high school wore uniforms--black and plaid skirts with white blouses. It was not a great equalizer. The most sexually appealing girls still stood out. Sex appeal is not determined by the amount of skin exposed.
Ann;
Just shows how your perspective has changed with experience.
The middle school my kids attended had a dress code. The school secretary had a ruler she used to measure the length of the girls shorts. My friend's daughter, who was almost six feet tall in 8th grade, could no longer wear shorts as finding something that came down that far on her thighs and was reasonably fashionable (by 8th grade girl standards) was not possible.
Because of the shorts rule, a lot of girls took to wearing yoga pants, which were then deemed questionable because they are so snug fitting.
The high school doesn't have much of a dress code and everything seems fine.
Draconian measures don't work as this principal is finding out.
A lot of adults don't get just how skanky a LOT of young girls dress these days
That's true.
I'm also pro uniform. I grew up in a town with a lot of income disparity, and clothing brands became an obsessions for kids in middle and junior high school. Better to keep them all focused on school. If they want to think about clothes, let them think about them constructively and creatively in a fashion design course. (Do high schools have that?)
I was once sent home for a pair of mid-thigh khaki shorts that would have been appropriate at a corporate golf outing
I don't know anyone in my high school who was ever sent home for clothing violations. (I don't really know what the rules even were, except you couldn't bring a backpack to school in 9-10, which was utterly absurd. Especially considering I walked home from school at the time).
My elementary school was private, though, and had pretty strict rules and really at that point you might as well require a uniform, because the rules get to be more trouble than they are worth. I don't really like the idea of uniforms for high school students, though.
Just have the basic 'don't show up naked' rule and be done with it.
"Also, what on earth is wrong with headbands???? Why is a male principal making that minute a judgement on hair accessories?"
They're probably used to hide reefer.
Fortunately, winter is coming (it was a bit chilly this morning in NYC, although it's warmed up as the day has gone on).
Also skinny jeans are only tighter than most teenage-girl bootcuts at the calf and ankle.
And if can't wear a skinny cut you can't wear boots, right?
I would support a 'leggings aren't pants' type rule, though, that requires you to wear something at least to your thighs over leggings.
The outfit the girl in the photo that accompanies the story is wearing is just plain ugly.
Apparently it is a real problem these days in the work place that younger workers simply don't know how to dress appropriately for interviews and work.
They want to express their individual style, which is of course their right. And it is the right of the old fuddy-duddy making the hiring decisions to place your resume in the round file.
Of course I don't think it was any better when I went to high school back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Girls routinely wore tube and halter tops. Rarely at the same time.
The headbands thing is probably a response to the (historical?) use of bandannas/headbands to signify gang affiliation.
"Why I remember the vice principal, to whose office I'd been sent, musing out loud about the difficulties these skirts caused for the boys and what would happen if the girls came to school in bikinis."
I call language-fail.
The headbands thing is probably a response to the (historical?) use of bandannas/headbands to signify gang affiliation
I'm pretty sure 'do-rags' used to be banned for that reason, but headbands? Even your strict catholic school uniform folks would allow a headband, right?
The linked "mini skirts" do not approach current fashion in brevity.
"I'm pretty sure 'do-rags' used to be banned for that reason, but headbands? Even your strict catholic school uniform folks would allow a headband, right?"
Maybe the principal gets all of his knowledge about gang activity from a book published in 1982. He probably has a rule against leather jackets and pompadour haircuts, and guys who start jukeboxes by punching them.
OK, this is a wild guess: the policy was probably written by a man, and by "headband" he likely meant a bandanna or a sweatband (a la Lebron James); if the word catches up a girls' hair-styling device that's likely an accident.
None of this should be construed as a defense of the policy, if you please.
Unfortunately the styles that the stores carry don't match the dress code. We had a horrible time school shopping because there has to be sleeves on shirts (sleeveless, even in winter, is popular), yoga pants are banned, shorts/skirts/dresses have to be fingertip length. For a tall girl some of that stuff is hard to find so my daughter doesn't wear shorts, skirts or dresses, she wears cardigans over the sleeveless shirts. I wish they'd put me out of my misery and go to uniforms.
They have plenty of stylish choices to make within the range of what is permitted and shows a decent respect for the classroom.
I suspect they're showing all the respect those classrooms deserve.
if the word catches up a girls' hair-styling device that's likely an accident.
And yet, it was pretty much all girls being sent to detention.
Unfortunately the styles that the stores carry don't match the dress code.
This is the problem when you fight too hard against what is popular. Like I said, if you are going to be that strict just skip straight to uniforms, although they will do absolutely nothing about keeping the boys from being 'distracted' by the girls if that is one of his stated aims.
Schools would be better off hiring some cool rebel loner to show up to school wearing a big baggy jumpsuit and convincing all the other kids that that's the cool thing to do.
Of course getting a cool rebel loner to play ball is the hard part. Maybe if they agree to let his band play the big Fall Dance.
"Like I said, if you are going to be that strict just skip straight to uniforms, although they will do absolutely nothing about keeping the boys from being 'distracted' by the girls if that is one of his stated aims."
The only thing that would keep hormonally charged teenaged boys and girls from being distracted by one another is to separate them. Boys will be distracted by girls even if they were all wearing burlap sacks. There was just as much distraction during the early '90s when girls were wearing formless slacks and high waisted jeans with sneakers.
Brando:
Perhaps a Slut Walk to scare the girls straight. The cynical expressions on some of the Sluts was telling.
Think of all the skin diseases that might reside on those chairs.
A picture is worth 1,000 words, and the one accompanying this story tells you exactly why the school instituted a dress code.
What fascinates me is that the idiot parents are actually opposed to the school mandating that their daughters not look like skanks. What's with parents these days?
A good argument for school uniforms.
Re miniskirts in 1965: That's when Mary Quant dreamed them up--but they were considered daring and inappropriate for non-recreational wear until about 1967, when skirts everywhere began to creep above the knee. Only in about 1969 were miniskirts universal. Then, abruptly, in about 1971, minis went firmly out of style, to be replaced by the "midi" and varying below-the-knee lengths. It wasn't until the 1990s that miniskirts began to be seen again widely.
Brando:
Mother Nature is an androphobic beast. As if we don't have enough to cloud our formative minds. It seems at times that puberty requires a super-human effort to exercise morality. While some of us fail to mature, and suffer the "burden", most of us emerge bruised but otherwise sane and whole.
Schools would be better off hiring some cool rebel loner to show up to school wearing a big baggy jumpsuit and convincing all the other kids that that's the cool thing to do.
Solid strategy but then I went to high school during the grunge era...
Will Cate:
For better or worse. Yes, I know. Inconsequential, moderated, or subversive. The last is an ambiguous term, in part because it is accompanied by disruption and upheaval. I'm only noting the general tenor of men and women.
Freeman Hunt, I was dinged for much the same thing in HS - I was in knee length, pink walking shorts that looked like old-lady golf shorts. As I was discussing this terrible infraction with the principal, another girl walked by in 4" heels and a teeny miniskirt. Despite the fact that she looked like a hooker, this outfit was all in accordance with the dress code (skirts were 100% OK). At least the principal had the grace to look over at me and laugh after she passed by.
Our public schools here have a very comprehensive uniform policy and dress code, for the reasons that most large, urban districts have such things. They are not onerous, just boring, and each campus can choose to adopt none, part, or all of the code. My 14 year old is fond of pointing out that at the performing/fine arts magnet HS, they have no uniforms AT ALL, and yet you can tell the "PVA" kids at a distance, because they all wear the exact same sloppy, hipster clothes - as much as a uniform as a polo shirt and khaki shorts ever could be.
Hopelessly vague. And it is the same rationale behind burkas. Can't have men be distracted by the sight of female flesh, now can we?
Wait...are you trying to deny that teenaged boys are obssessed with teenage girls?
Are you trying to deny that many teenage girls are obssessed with ganing the attention of teenage boys?
Have you seen the way that many of those same teenage girls dress today?
I'm so glad I've been out of school for so long.
Fart Noises. Again.
There's a relatively straight forward solution to these issues - a dress code. Have all girls and boys where navy blue pants (black socks and shoes) and a light blue shirt (with undershirt). Black shoes and black belt (or whatever uniform works).
All these issues go away - kids can wear whatever they want out of school - problem solved (and parents save a bundle of money)
Old women are so funny, the way they complain about young girls doing the same things they used to do. All the moms at my daughter's school were like that. It's especially funny when the old woman is a law professor, and spins all sorts of complicated rationalizations about how totally different she was.
The real question is why is there an un-air conditioned high school in the US in this day and age?
I don't watch those nightly talk shows anymore but I used to wonder about those couches. Women would come on in dresses so short there was no way it would cover her rear when she sat down. I notice they always delicately pulled on the skirts so they might sit on them slightly. What I wonder is how unsanitary is that, almost bare bottoms making the rounds of the high school rooms as they go from room to room for each class.
I don't care what it does to the boys, they are going to have their fantasies no matter what the girls were wearing, I'm just thinking ewww I don't want to sit on that chair she just sat on.
And BTW Sean, Ann is not an old woman in my books, I AM an old woman.
Middle-aged women--in fairness, that is really the category which embraces most of the moms at my daughter's school--are also funny in their lack of self-awareness.
You are not arguing with someone from 50 years ago, continually.
ar·gue/ˈärgyo͞o/verb
give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea, action, or theory, typically with the aim of persuading others to share one's view.
exchange or express diverging or opposite views, typically in a heated or angry way.
The words are clear, and from no other place than McGruber, that I know of anyway:
The game has changed. BUT the players are the same.
;...
During the 50 years this feeling has arisen, there have, certainly, been moments of doubt.
These are what we will find and use to win.
The doubt moments over the last half-century.
"Why,"
A great guy I used to know, agronomist now in the vein of the great Iowan (not Minnesotan or Illinois *&^& [like Iowahawk gladly is no more]) Bourlag used to say "I like it when old men start sentences with "why" and then..."
"Why the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing."
"Why they have so many chiefs and so few Indians."
"Why the damn coach has the Heisman Trophy winner Ty Detmer benched and has this Favre guy in there throwing the damn ball around like it is )(*^& parking-lot football."
"Why those (*^*(^ design that (&(&^(^ machine to operate like that..."
"Why only a fool would get that close to the ferry's cables."
http://www.tn.merrimac.wi.gov/ferry.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
Yes, I am, like the Don, missing a few steps here and there.
So what of it?
?
Rebecca's got a cigarette there. Didn't NYC (and Staten Island is part of NYC) raise the smoking she from 18 (which nattily dressed Rebecca is still younger than) to 21?
Maybe the students are rebelling because their campus looks like it was designed by an architect from a 1980s Eastern Bloc country.
Seriously, though, uniforms, full stop. Of course they don't remove all sex appeal, and there are ways that kids will push the envelope. But they create an objective standard, send the message that certain clothing is appropriate in certain situations, help blur socioeconomic lines, and prevent parents from having to shop for stuff that meets dress code without looking frumpy.
And parents are whacked these days. It's true that you can't find reasonably stylish clothing that fits dress codes. Why? Because moms agree to buy the slutty clothing for their daughters, so the manufacturers produce more of what is in demand.
I've been thinking about the parenting issue with regard to the college "rape" brouhaha too. Most parents I know, like my husband and I, are shocked by the lack of rules in freshman dorms now. No curfew, no "dorm mother", no rules except the roommates have to agree that the boyfriends can sleep over. Which got me to thinking about all of the kids in my daughter's high school who would socialize in bedrooms with doors closed. We had to constantly reiterate our house rules, that bedroom doors remained open and mixed gender groups could socialize in the TV room, outside on the deck, etc, but not in my daughter's bedroom. The reactions from visiting kids suggested that these rules were archaic.
Hah, I just remembered (when thinking about the ways that girls can still push the limits with uniforms)...
I never had a school uniform but in high school I worked at a grocery store where we wore uniforms made of a very ugly, polyester double knit (when synthetic fabrics were very "out"). The tunic like top was baggy, but was constructed with darts so I altered it by taking in the waist.
Oh...and back to the college dorm thing. My daughter had two roommates and one of them had a 30 year old creepy guy coming around. Daughter and the other roommate did NOT feel comfortable and talked to the other girl about it but she continued to have him over. The other girls went to the RA, who told them they just needed to work it out....so even that ridiculously lax rule wasn't enforced.
Your description of high school and mini skirts brought back memories. I'm a couple of years behind you but in my senior year, '69-70, the mini-skirt height crisis was still in full bloom. My homeroom teacher, Mr. Haley, was supposed to enforce the "No Higher than 2" above the knee" dress code. He had NO intention of physically measuring girls skirts. To meet his requirement he had the girls line up on the back wall and, from his desk, he compared their skirt height to the ruler he held in his hand. They all passed the check.
A lot of the little girls in the private schools my kids attended wore shorts under their skirts.
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