What Did Your Middle Schoolers Wear to School Today?

For months, last year's debate between dress code and uniforms raged between the majority who voted for uniforms, and the minority who did not. Even the disparity in voting numbers was challenged by parents who never received the calls from the schools, and those who received more calls than they had children. In the end, the board voted not to impose uniforms on the students, but instead, there is now a dress code with higher standards for student apparel.

 The moment of truth has come. As Danbury Middle Schools doors swing wide this morning, students in grades 6-8 will be entering the school, and hopefully, they will all be following the dress code.

 “My sister is 11, and I want her to wear whatever she wants, but she said she will follow the code,” Leslie Marino, 16, said as she helped her mother with shopping in Walmart. “I think the teachers don't pay attention, anyway. They only pick on some kids.”

 Many parents who voted for uniforms feel that the parents should have enforced the dress code at home. Maria Silva, mother of a 14 year old son and a 10 year old daughter said, “Those hanging pants, those girls with everything exposed, you think that's right? And it's getting worse. You see little girls with high heels and everything else. I say Thank God my 10 year old doesn't even want to dress like that.”

 Her 14 year old son said he thought that when girls wore scanty clothing to school, “It can lead to bad manners.”

 Raising her eyebrows, Silva said, “And more than that.”

 The indignation of parents who try to enforce more modest dress at home has been clear from the beginning of the community conversation. Yet somehow, many girls did find their way into the schools dressed in inappropriate clothing. Broadview's Principal Ed Robbs said in an interview last spring that many girls dressed well at home, but that they arrived at school with another less fitting outfit in their backpacks. When parents were called, many swore their children had not worn those items when they left the house.

 While both Broadview Middle School and Rogers Park Middle School give detailed, illustrated drawings of what is and is no longer permitted to be worn at school, neither school outlines a specific consequence for disregarding the dress code. With 1100 students at Broadview and close to 1000 at Rogers Park, time will tell if the decision to implement the dress code over the uniforms will be an enforceable one.