Are Dress Codes crushing the fabrication of creativity? The dreaded statement that all students hate to hear… dress code. If you’re new to the term, dress codes are specific rules that determine what you can and cannot wear. And it is a mighty big topic for students and administration, especially at Sierra Pacific High School. With a new dress code for the school year 2024-2025, there are diverse opinions about the changes. Some positive but also some negative.
So what is the Sierra Pacific dress code? With things like no midriff being shown, no loungewear (pajama pants), no gang related clothing (no solid red or blue outfits), no profanities/drugs on clothes or other inappropriate images/sayings, no slippers, and no sunglasses in doors. These are just some of the main dress code violations students are to abide by. Some may say this seems reasonable but not all agree with that. Compared to other school districts this dress code may seem very relaxed, but not all students at Sierra Pacific are happy about the new dress code policy. With things being added like no pajamas and no slippers, this left many students angry with the new found rules.
Jadyn Padilla, a student from Sierra Pacific High School says, “A lot of us were upset over the new rule on pajama pants. Not only are we losing a comfort element of school, but also not everyone can afford to buy certain clothing to wear to school. Pajamas are something that are cheap and are what a lot of our student body wears on a daily basis.”
These new changes were added at the start of the semester and many were left questioning why the change had occurred. Why couldn’t the dress code be the same as last year? Barbara Crose informed all students how people from the community had come forward to the school board to speak up against the example students were setting. They believed it was unprofessional to show up to school in your pajamas.
When asked why the sudden change in dress code Crose responded, “It’s just very unprofessional.”
She talked about how showing up to school in her PJs was one of her biggest fears growing up. It wasn’t acceptable to do that years ago.
Most students wanted to know why dress code is implemented so heavily into school systems, especially at Sierra Pacific, Crose responded saying, “It is depicting what our reputation is as a whole. It’s getting you ready for future jobs.”
She explained how in a workplace you have rules you have to abide by, school is just the same. It’s one step closer to being prepared for the real world.
Dress code has been something that has never fully been discussed in school districts. It’s always been enforced, but never fully explained. It’s always what is the dress code and never why is there a dress code? It’s a question worth asking and a topic worth discovering. And that is what Sierra Pacific is doing. Students, parents, and even people from the community have gone to school board meetings to express their thoughts on the high school dress code. A question that was asked to both Padilla and Crose was, why is dress code important to you?
Said Crose: “It shows your state of mind, it shows who you want to be.”