Clovis Unified’s dress code acts to make students uncomfortable in their own skin

As a mom of two children in Clovis schools, there’s a million things to think about and consider as the school year nears. Traditions to uphold, schedules to work out, supplies to buy and, of course, back-to-school clothes. Now, for the first time, my boys want to have a say in what they wear.

So I took notice last month when The Bee’s Education Lab published an article about how some students were looking to make changes to Clovis Unified School District’s dress code. The young woman quoted in the article discussed a multitude of changes that would allow for a more permissible dress code for all, allowing students the freedom for much more individualized expression than exists today.

The purpose of the dress code is supposed to be to eliminate “distractions” for students so as to make it easier for them to learn. As currently written, however, not only does the code fail to eliminate “distractions,” the vague, subjective nature of the dress code opens up issues ranging from body shaming to racial and gender bias, and puts the students, teachers, and administration in uncomfortable positions.

This isn’t new. These issues aren’t suddenly coming up this year, or last. This has been an ongoing debate for decades because the core issue hasn’t changed: one-size-fits-all dress codes do not allow for the diversity of children in Clovis Unified, and they are even less effective when you take those diverse bodies and put them through developmental changes that start as early as 5th grade and don’t stop until they’re well out of high school.

There are boys in their early teens growing a mustache, while some 30 year olds can go for days without needing a shave. Girls who were rail thin at the end of one school year come back with curves the next. These changes are not being made by the students; rather, they are happening to the students. Dress codes often end up ostracizing young people for simply growing up as though there is something shameful in it.

When I taught 6th grade, my students ranged from looking like 3rd graders to being ready for high school. What they all had in common was they had no say in how quickly, or slowly, their bodies changed. My responsibility as an educator was to teach them, support them, and build their confidence when they were as vulnerable as many of them would ever be in their lives.

Policing which student’s shirt was “distracting” would have left me making subjective choices regarding a student’s body that ultimately would have served only to make my students uncomfortable in their own skin — exactly the opposite of those responsibilities I took very seriously.

Those writing the dress code might be doing it with the best intentions in mind, but they’re not doing it while considering students’ dramatically different bodies.

Our children have survived the uncertainty of a pandemic. They have learned over computers, been isolated, lost regular childhood interactions, and were subjected to challenges no one foresaw. Now that it appears they can come back, be together, learn together, see each other in real life, maybe it isn’t the best idea to put their bodies front and center. Perhaps we, as the adults, can stop scapegoating and body-shaming our young people and create a school that teaches common respect for all, where we don’t fault one student for the behavior of another.

As a mother of future teenage boys, I’ll work to instill in my kids that their behavior is their responsibility — not that of their potentially “distracting” classmates.