McKinley High School has a dress code spelled out in its planner. Although students have the right to choose what they want to wear as stated in Amendment 9 that the Constitution should not deny or restrict the people’s certain rights, the school is proposing a revision to the code.

On Tuesday, April 14, Principal Ron Okamura held a department chair meeting about teachers’ increased concerns of students’ inappropriate clothes. Okamura assigned Vice principal Anne Murphy to be in charge of the dress code committee along with selected students who have leadership roles in the school.

“The clothes did not seem appropriate for school,” Murphy said.

The selected students were allowed to bring a friend who did not have any leadership role so that “there would be a balanced viewpoint,” said Murphy.

Teachers in each department have until April 24 to provide the department votes of whether to revise the dress code.

Murphy said that “the entire school has to promote it” in order to tighten the dress code. So if the votes all say yes, then the revised code will go to the second stage. The second stage will involve talking about consequences, posters to promote appropriate clothes, etc.

Murphy said that even if the second stage were to happen, there would be no chance of having a uniform policy at MHS.

“We try to promote college and career readiness in students,” but “we don’t want to squash your expression,” said Murphy.

Senior Colt Dante doesn’t see a problem with what students wear at McKinley.

“They’re fine, ” Dante said. “It doesn’t matter what we wear because high school is all about expressing yourself and finding out who you are.”

When asked about certain fashion worn these days such as tank tops that show the sports or tube top bra, Dante said, “There are things that have become socially acceptable.”

However, Dante says that there are some fashion or clothing that he thinks is inappropriate for school such as

• Short shorts that shows their butt cheeks
• Clothes that show too much cleavage
• See-through clothes that show the undergarment
• Shirts that have a picture with nude pictures
• Guys with guns on shirt or with shirts that have swear words
• No sagging pants because it shows the underwear

When students go out into the working world, the type of clothes worn at work matters.

AVID and Japanese language teacher Sandra Oda said, “Clothes that have a low cleavage in the back and front are inappropriate,” as well as “beach wear.”

Oda said, “The goal is to study in school and focus on learning, but it’s hard to focus when there is a distraction like inappropriate clothes.”

In 2011, Harvard Review showed 53 percent of women felt that in order to get success in life, they must dress appropriately for a job, which does not include long nails, flashy make-up, plunging necklines, short or tight pants or skirts, etc. In the survey,  37 percent of men said that appearance is important and if the person does not look like a leader in terms of clothing, it is possible that that person will not get a position as a leader.