The FISD Secondary school Dress code for the most part, is not entirely bad. It has fine points, such as nothing offensive including sexual themes, gang-related attire, or illegal substances (drugs).

Alas, the most heavily enforced code tends to be on feminine clothing. Girls or female-presenting students have the hammer constantly brought down onto them for simple things like leggings or yoga pants. These are inherently non-distracting pieces of clothing. People in FISD Schools are *allowed to wear things such as pajama pants on non-permitted days, while the second a teacher or AP sees a student with leggings that aren´t wearing a long shirt or skirt that doesn't cover the rear area of the leggings/yoga pants, or a shirt that shows too much shoulder or collar bone, they are immediately disciplined. 

Of course, there are limits. This is not alluding to things such as lingerie or undergarments to be worn, it is referring to simple everyday wear. It is no longer about dress code anymore, it's about the objectification and sexualization of young people.

An instance that has happened recently was a female-presenting student wearing a dress, that showed the collar bone (hardly any cleavage, no more than what a professional in the workplace would wear.) and a teacher told the student they need to put on a shirt underneath or cover it up. This student was not doing anything wrong and didn't even wear anything inherently "provocative", it was a long dress, going to the ankle.

There have even been multiple male-presenting students who have worn things such as crop tops, yoga pants, skirts, and short shorts that female-presenting students have been dress coded for to see if they would be treated the same as female students, and received no repercussions at all. This indicates the issue to be more based on the sexualization of young female-presenting persons and the inherent misogyny in our school system. This system enforces the idea that female-presenting people are "distracting" by living in their own bodies and encourages internalized shame. This is harmful to many student's mental health and self-esteem.

In fact, students are 99% of the time unbothered by what other students are wearing. If someone is wearing something at school, it's near impossible to have not seen something like that when going to the store, mall, or hanging out in public. This necessitates the objectification and dehumanization of students who show any sort of skin or wear tight clothing and implies that male-presenting students don't have self-control, and are not expected to.

Instead of this oppressive system, we should do away with banning tight-fitting clothes (that don´t actually reveal anything; the buttocks being more “emphasized” in leggings is actually just the same as in jeans), clothes that are not explicitly sexual for highschoolers (sexual would be low cut tops that almost reveal the areola of the breast), clothes that show the area of the belly button (there is nothing provocative about stomachs), or shorts that do not reveal the bottom half of the buttocks. Students wearing these things are dressing for the weather, comfort, or to feel good about themselves. Female-presenting students’ bodies should not be considered something “distracting” when there has never been a problem even when the dress code has not been properly enforced by staff. There should not be rule enforcement on clothes that show female-presenting students’ shoulders, thighs, armpits, stomach, or collarbones. These are normal parts of the body that everyone has, and are not sexual. By making students hide these parts of the body, it promotes rape culture (defined by a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse).

The reason you should support the change of this damaging system is that if enough people can behind this and spread awareness of how poisonous this is to students, it could make a change and consequently encourage body positivity and take a step to end the sexualization of young persons. 

*Pajamas are explicitly stated they do not follow FISD dress code but are not penalized if a student is wearing them.