Growing up, my school uniform consisted of a white Polo shirt, a navy blue skirt that hit right below the knee and long white socks whose cuff absolutely, positively could not dip below the lower thigh. Basically, female students couldn’t show even a strip of skin below the waist.
Yes, I attended Catholic school.
No, it wasn’t in the 1930s.
As for the school’s cheerleading uniforms… wait, what cheerleading?
Actually, the high school did have a few girls, who were allowed to shake some pom poms (the plastic versions), at basketball and football games. However, they did so in our ultra-modest Victorian-inspired school uniforms, which bear zero resemblance to the teeny-tiny pieces of Spandex most 21st century school cheerleading members wear to shake their non-plastic pom poms in front of crowds of pumped-up pubescents.
I had a flashback to my school uniform the other day when I heard about the brouhaha surrounding a San Jose high school’s dress code policy and its effect on female cheerleaders at Piedmont Hills High School.
According to reports, girls on the cheer squad were banned from wearing their mini-skirt uniforms on campus because the school’s principal felt they were too short.
In a statement to a local TV news team, the principal made this comment about the skirt ban:
“Out of respect for length where if you were to bend over or squat your personal business will remain personal. The classrooms are an academic environment and when the skirts are far below the standards of what they should be it’s a distraction in the classroom and so we just ask that students respect the classroom.”
Imagine that, a principal with principles.
School cheerleaders, upset that they couldn’t wear their uniforms to class on game days, took to various social media platforms and complained about being “disappointed” and “discriminated” against because they couldn’t wear their barely-there skirts to exhibit their “school pride”.
Hmmm… is that what they are calling it these days?
The girls also brought up the issue of money. Apparently, those itsy-bitsy pieces of fabric that comprise the ultra-mini cheerleading uniforms cost in excess of $300. Three-hundred bucks for a vest and a skirt whose hemline hits above mid-thigh and barely covers a girl’s lower cheeks.
Long drama short, the school decided that the female cheerleaders can wear the skirts to games and pep rallies, but when they are sporting them during school hours they must wear leggings underneath.
Personally, I think it is a fair compromise, given that some schools don’t even let cheerleaders wear their uniforms to class at all.
What do you think of the short skirt situation?
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