Lexington Catholic Community, on Thursday (2/24/22) a revised uniform policy was announced to incoming freshmen parents. On Friday (2/25/22) it was emailed to families of lexington catholic, justifying these new changes with “Safety, Unity, and Affordability”. All three of those points are excuses for a cash grab and are irrelevant considering Lexington Catholic is a small school with the LC crest on all current polo shirts.

This new uniform policy outlaws most of the previous uniform colors. Currently, White, Green, Red, Yellow, Light Blue, Royal Blue, Navy Blue, Pink, Gray and Black. The pink color was added to support former principal Sally Stevens. With the proposed changes, only White, Light Blue, Royal Blue, and Navy Blue are allowed. Many students own mostly non-blue colors. It was encouraged to have a variety of colors, especially the non-blue ones. 

Furthermore, there are rules on the outerwear. Only NEW outerwear is allowed. Regardless of the style of current outerwear it is outlawed next year. This means every student wishing to wear additional layers in the cold school building must buy completely new outerwear. The new outerwear rules will hurt Lexington Catholic’s plentiful clubs and sports that sell sweatshirts for fundraisers. These new rules on shirts places a burden upon lower income families and families with one year left in the school.

By restricting when high schoolers, some even full adults, can wear shorts, the school sets a poor example of what it is capable of doing. As a school looking to be an example of college, why is it necessary to mandate what pants or shorts a  student can wear? Furthermore, allowing girls to wear skorts during the school year further confuses the matter. This brings the question, is this rule really about the warmth of students?

Finally, safety is an issue cited as a reason for these changes. How is a uniform going to keep students safe from construction workers? Is the school truly concerned that one of the workers is going to sneak into the building to cause harm?

In conclusion, these new uniform changes are unjustified, expensive, and are not comprehensive enough to be warranted. An appropriate solution is to slowly implement in the uniform colors and completely disregard the other changes as they are not true solutions to problems, but instead the changes are meant to bolster public opinion at the expense of student culture.

Lexington Catholic Administration, please practice those ideals of school spirit and tradition and deeply consider the desires of the whole student body, community, and families.