By Kimmy Sullivan, ’15
During the second week of the school year, UAHS’s new principal, Ryan McClure, addressed each grade level in its own assembly. Each assembly was mostly devoted to typical announcements: the date for prom, a pep rally to be held later that week, and a reminder to make good decisions during football games. However, one subject addressed opened the controversial floodgates for more than a few upset students: the dress code.
No one felt the dagger to the heart as deeply as a sizeable portion of the school’s freshman and sophomore female population. (One sophomore girl even had the audacity to stand up during her assembly and publicly inquire about the changes in the dress code that would cause her spaghetti-strap tops and dresses to collect dust in her closet.) Don’t get me wrong, the announcement wasn’t a warning of an impending apocalypse, but some kids were pretty irked over the whole ordeal.
But fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. Principal McClure’s announcement wasn’t about a change in the dress code — actually, no changes have been made. The announcement was meant to be a reminder that students need to dress (brace for impact)… school appropriate when they come to school. Shocking, I know.
I think it’s safe to say that McClure didn’t expect the reaction he got when he said the words, ‘dress code’. In an interview, McClure said he realized the importance of the issue after the fact.The reality is that there haven’t been any changes made to the dress code or the way it’s being handled.
“[The dress code announcement] was just a reminder,” McClure said. “We have good students and smart kids, so I’m going to trust that they know what school appropriate is.”
So what’s the moral of this story? It’s always best to get the facts before jumping to sour conclusions and hopping on the backlash bandwagon. Contrary to popular belief, the administration isn’t just out to make life difficult for unsuspecting students.
And as for the dress code, just use your brain when you’re getting dressed. If you have to hide your outfit from mom under a sweater so she’ll let you leave the house, you may want to reconsider. There’s no reason to wear anything scandalous to school anyways — nobody wants to look up from their psych test and see someone’s buttcheeks hanging out of their Abercrombie & Fitch booty-shorts.
So girls, take a sigh of relief. It’s going to be okay, I promise. And boys… well, hang in there fellas.