New dress code awaits students

By Tracy Farr
Editor, The Daily Spittoon

If you thought a tax-free weekend would be just the thing to help pay for your kid's new school clothes, you can think again. The Stinky Creek ISD School Board recently approved a new dress code for students --  which means local parents will have to buy "approved" clothing at full price.

"This is just absurd," said Mary Whittacker, mother of two teenaged boys who attend the school.  "I went out and spent a butt-load of money on new clothes and now I have to buy more -- just because the school board changed the code right before the first day.  What were they thinking?"

According to SCISD Superintendent Marcus Spilling, the board was trying to make sure the students stay safe and on task.

"Sometimes what our children wear to school is just downright distracting," Spilling said.  "Take for instance tennis shoes.  They're fine for the tennis court, but are they really conducive to education in the classroom? I don't think so."

According to the new code, Stinky Creek students may no longer wear tennis shoes, flip flops, sandals, boots, or fluffy animal slippers.   Blue jeans, shorts, pajama bottoms, karate uniforms and anything orange is also unacceptable.  Children CAN wear anything they find in their grandparents' closet.

"We're not trying to punish the students," Spilling said, "we're just trying to make them see that what they want to wear is bad and what WE want them to wear is good."

As in previous years, boys will not be allowed to wear earrings, mohawks, tattoos, necklaces, New York Mets baseball hats, or blue hair. Shirts must be tucked in, belts must be worn tight around the waist, and hair must be kept out of the eyes and completely off the ears and collars.

"Our teachers want to know whether or not they are addressing a boy or girl," Spilling said.  "Also, if you can see the ear, there is no excuse for them to say they couldn't hear what the assignment was."

For the girls, students may only wear one earring per ear, dresses and slacks must cover the knees, hair must be permed and styled, fingernails can be painted but only in school colors, and makeup must never be noticed. 

"Some of these girls come in looking like clowns," Spilling said.  "And if they do, we're going to dress them in a little clown outfit we bought over the summer.  And if the guys come in with too long of hair, we have a little pink dress I think they'll look pretty in."

"I think the school board has gone over the top," said Judy Princer, president of the local PTA.  "We're not going to sit quiet and let these men make our school a prison for our children.  I plan to be at the next school board meeting and voice my opinion -- very loudly."