Foothill Technology students are in the unique position of having to hear about how unique they are, and not just from their counselors and teachers.
I’ve overheard the phrase “only at Foothill” only slightly more than I’ve overheard Mac v. PC debates raging in our pods. Revelrous cheering rings through campus when API scores are announced.
Every high school is told they’re unique, but other high schools haven’t suspended students over on-campus Quidditch matches, reimagined Miley Cyrus’ “Can’t Be Tamed” for charity, or reenacted The Village People’s “YMCA” for… the heck of it.
Allegedly, Foothill’s only fist fight has taken place, lo and behold, over a computer.
That is why it came as a shock to me when, for the first time in my life, I was told I violated the dress code and needed to cover my shirt up. Admittedly, I absolutely did violate the dress code, but the circumstances only reminded me of how charmingly weird Foothill is, and how overdue it is for change.
I was wearing a risque AP Calculus shirt designed by math teacher Anthony Villa, who’s inexplicably more popular than anyone I know. Our calculus teacher has needed to boot students out of the room during lunch because it was too crowded.
Well, only at Foothill.
Such a weird school would benefit from a clearer dress code, and can handle one. We have the ability to afford greater individuality to students while retaining the necessary constraints that a dress code requires.
Clothing worthy of censorship is split broadly into two categories. One of the categories has little to no application to Foothill. The Board of Education defines this category as clothing that is threatening to the safety of other students, and is largely due to gang-related displays of loyalty.
We have more loyalty to Renaissance Friday than we do to whatever local gangs we may have, whomever they may be.
Administration corroborates the claim that gang-related violence is virtually non-existent on Foothill campus, if it exists at all. It cites scandalously revealing clothing as the biggest threat to what has been defined as a “professional learning environment.”
Villa agrees, stating, “The only harms I have seen from the dress code not being enforced is when a student wears clothing that does not adequately cover his or her body or undergarments, which then creates a unnecessary distraction in the classroom.”
Absolutely. The Board of Education’s dress code, and how administration chooses to enforce it, makes a clear point of consistently enforcing violations that fall into this category. Less consistent, however, is the enforcement of violations that are not as easily defined.
I’ve seen a student carry on a completely professional conversation with a teacher about the day’s homework while wearing a shirt with a scantily woman in the foreground and a marijuana leaf in the background.
The teacher didn’t ask the student to cover their shirt, and no learning environments were harmed in the violation of our dress code. I saw the student later on, still wearing the same shirt, unimpeded.
I’m not contending that shirts like these should be allowed. Clearly, they should not, as they advocate alcohol consumption and encourage drug use, which only furthers what Villa describes as “a culture of complacency.”
These shirts simply demonstrate the incongruence between the damages purportedly caused by a betrayal of “professional learning environment.”
Villa continues, “I have seen T-shirts that mimic the Pabst Blue Ribbon icon go all day throughout the campus, but a Farrah Fawcett shirt where she is in a one-piece be asked to be turned inside out. Which shirt causes a higher degree of unprofessionalism?”
Any workplace calling itself professional is unlikely to advocate participation in pajama day, and this further raises the issue of just how central “professionalism” could possibly be on a high school campus.
It’s time to be clear about what students should and shouldn’t be allowed to wear, and how that expression will realistically impact Foothill’s ability to continue doing what it’s always done so well –teach its students.
A good place to start is with the admittance that a professional learning environment is threatened just as much by innuendo on a calculus shirt as it is by the fun and unique school activities that build our reputation as a fantastic school.
For example, I’d be one of the first to mourn the death of pajama day, or the end of our teacher’s inalienable right to wear black leather and dance to The Village People, but they are clear violations of the concept of a “professional learning environment.”
These activities don’t uphold a “professional learning environment,” but still provide motivation, joy and free expression of character. The same qualities can be attributed to Villa’s AP Calculus shirt.
I’m not talking about abandoning the dress code, but rather drawing a clear line in the sand about what constitutes a disruption of learning environment back a pace.
Our test scores show we have a lot to teach, and our dress code should too. Let’s start by urging a clearer, realistic dress code.
