At Schreiber, there are few mandated restrictions involving student attire, allowing male and female students to express their senses of fashion with varying lengths and shapes of clothing. There is one exception to this lack of restrictions: physical education classes.
The article of clothing banned? Tank tops. Female students are sent to the sidelines and given zeros for the day when they show up in straps instead of t-shirt sleeves. However, male students often wear jersey shirts or other forms of sleeveless attire.
The Schreiber Times feels that the dress-code restrictions in gym are unwarranted. The ban of tank tops is a pointless addition to the loose dress code that makes participating in gym more difficult, as students have fewer clothing options, and t-shirts can restrict the range of motion and feel very warm in the summer months. The gym dress guidelines seem to specifically target women (much like the clothing restrictions at Weber Middle School.)
Not only is this unfair to students who want to wear comfortable exercise clothes, but also toward female students who are called out on it.
Gym teachers enforce this rule so that gym can be about fitness, not clothing, but by restricting what students can wear they are taking the focus away from exercise and fixating on whether or not female students are “distracting.”
The Schreiber Times advises physical education classes to remove the rule against tank tops. It is inconsistent with school policy that already allows tank tops in all other classes, making gym the one exception, despite the fact that many people prefer to exercise in tank tops.
The change in rules would improve the grades of students who accidentally bring tank tops, or who get called out on shirts deemed “inappropriate.” Enforcing this rule sends the wrong message to female students, compelling them to fixate on their outfits rather than on their personal health. The code has implications that sexualize the students and that male students are not subject to it makes it unfair for all involved. Rather than allowing this rule to continue, the unjust code must be abolished.