Dress Code Time

Every Fall when school starts up we read reports of new dress code debates, and the recent one in Chicagoland has some students upset, some parents in favor of administration, while a few parents wonder why school administrators want to spend their time on such issues.

Are you hearing this in your area? What do you think the bottom-line principles should be with dress codes?

Or, what rules do/did you use with your kids?

Spirit Day arrived Friday at Downers Grove South High School with less of a cheer and more of a thud. In fact, it almost became protest day.

Some highly engaging issues have been raised this week among the 3,150 students — hypocrisy, sexism, First Amendment rights, the consequences of choices — but not as part of the curriculum. No, these matters rich in potential intellectual discourse boiled down to something more fundamental.

“We’re asking young men to pull their pants up so we don’t see their underwear,” Principal Stephan Bild said.

It was all part of a simmering controversy over a new emphasis on the dress code at the west suburban school. Administrators grew concerned “that some students and current fashion trends were pushing the boundaries of the dress code to a place the administration and staff could no longer condone or ignore,” Bild wrote in a letter to parents, “particularly young ladies wearing shorts far above midthigh and young men wearing pants far below the level of their waists.”