Forsythe Middle School in Ann Arbor has faced student protests and parent challenges in the last few weeks due to its dress code.
Ann Arbor students claim that the dress code is arbitrary and negatively impacts girls over boys. Ann Arbor school officials on the other hand claim that the rules are meant to make sure classroom focus is kept on learning rather than the wardrobe of the students.
Ann Arbor parents who have been involved bring up issue of affordability to purchase clothing that provides comfort but still fits in the dress code.
The Ann Arbor school district may consider uniforms in order to avoid these issues moving forward. By having a uniform, all Ann Arbor students in the school will be required to wear the same types of clothes.
Students at an Ann Arbor middle school are speaking up against a dress code they say is unfair and arbitrary.
Sarah Myers-Levitt, an eighth-grade student at Forsythe Middle School, organized a protest on Friday, May 29, involving 80 students wearing clothing teachers say violates the dress code.
Girls wore shorts and some boys joined in, wearing muscle shirts, Sarah said.
According to an email to parents from Interim Principal Tamber Woodworth, the staff asked students to change and did not discipline any students.
But days later, Sarah said, some girls wore the same shorts they did during the protest to no comment from staff members.
For three years, she said, she’s had teachers send her to the office saying her clothing, such as shorts or a crew neck, short-sleeve shirt, violates the school’s dress code. Until the last two weeks, she said, she was too intimidated to speak up for herself. But she decided it was time to speak up.
First, Sarah went to Instagram and posted about the dress code.
“For the past three years of my life dress code has distracted me more than anything else at school. Constantly making sure my shirt is pulled down in the hall, avoiding certain teachers, getting called down to the office to change and just sitting there in the morning, out of ideas for “appropriate” things to wear. My mother would not let me go to school if I wasn’t dressed modestly and she sees me every day before I walk out that door,” she wrote to many responses from her peers.
The Ann Arbor schools administration responded to The Ann Arbor News’ request to talk about the dress code by sending a copy of the letter sent by Woodworth. (Read that letter here.)
Other middle schools have had rumblings about the dress code this spring.
The Ann Arbor schools’ student handbook describes inappropriate dress as, “Dressing or grooming in a manner which interferes or disrupts the educational process, interferes with the maintenance of a positive teaching/learning climate, or compromises reasonable standards of health, safety and decency.”
According to Woodworth’s letter, “some students came to school dressed in a manner that violated the current dress code, i.e., muscle shirts, short shorts, and spaghetti strap tops.
