At Bird Middle School and Eleanor N. Johnson Middle School, students are required to follow a dress code requiring that the straps on their tank tops are “two fingers wide” and their shorts are “fingertip length” to create an environment conducive to learning. These requirements may seem trivial; however, they greatly affect the daily lives of middle school students and must be changed. Both middle schools need to implement a new dress code because the current dress code is inconsistent with that of the high school.

The regulation of clothing plays virtually no role in the colder seasons, but the school year can start as early as late August and end in late June. During the warmer months, students wear less clothing to accommodate for the increase in the temperature. The problem with the strap width and short length requirements is that teen clothing brands do not make “school appropriate” clothing. When middle school girls go shopping for spring and summer clothes, stores are filled with booty shorts and crop tops, shirts with cut-outs and skirts with high slits. It is hard to find clothes that parents find appropriate and near impossible to find clothes that fit the dress code.

Another problem with the dress code is that it is only implemented at the middle schools. Walpole High School has a much more lax dress code that allows the school to deem a student’s clothing inappropriate if a faculty member or another students finds it offensive. The dress code at the high school is hardly ever implemented— except in cases like those involving clothing with derogatory messages or racial slurs on them. Why strictly enforce a dress code for three years only to abandon it once students reach high school?

The most common way the middle schools enforce the dress code is calling students out of class to discuss their poor clothing choices and making them change. Not only is this process a distraction from students learning, it is also damaging to students’ self esteems. A student calling out a classmate on his or her choice of clothing is considered rude, maybe even bullying; however, ridiculing a person’s clothing choice ceases to be unethical when a teacher is enforcing a school policy. With the onset of peer pressure and puberty, middle school is already a difficult time in every person’s life. The last thing students need is to feel judged not only by their classmates but by their teachers as well.

Should shorts cover a student’s butt? Yes. However, students should be allowed to wear what they feel comfortable in and their parents should decide whether their outfit is appropriate, not the school. Thighs do not distract students from learning. Shoulders do not distract students from learning. Removing students from class to check that their clothing is “school appropriate” distracts them from learning.

Instead of teaching students that they need to cover their bodies lest they distract their classmates from learning, school should teach students to focus on their education rather than their classmates’ bodies.