Dress code is often a hot topic when it comes to high school. However, dress code often limits the students self-identity, not allowing them to fully express themselves. The main conversations when it comes to dress code is that it helps with self identity, it can be discriminatory and school is a place for kids to be comfortable. 

Self identity is a big part of high school of your journey throughout high school. It’s a time where you experiment and discover what’s best for you. With a dress code in place, this limits the student’s chance to go through this discovery. Having the opportunity to express yourself ultimately leads to comfort in the place you spend eight hours of your day.

Comfortability is a big part of learning. Feeling uncomfortable in your environment can often lead to closing yourself off, which can have a detrimental effect on a student’s education. Considering that school’s primary focus is to teach you, what the student wears shouldn’t be a big deal.

Many schools say that enforcing dress code helps prepare students for the professional world. However, school should focus strictly on learning and personal growth as students can worry about professionalism for college. While I do think students should practice professionalism, I think high school’s main focus should be the establishment of self identity and focus on the last few years of childhood. 

Dress codes also have a problem with discrimination and targeting certain students. Many argue that these strict enforcements sexualize girls since there are often more restrictions on what girls can wear. Along with the sexualization, schools often let some girls get away with breaking dress code while other girls get in trouble for wearing the same thing. This inconsistency shows how unfair the dress code can be at schools.

Overall, having a dress code has many more downsides than upsides at schools, which drives the conversation about dress code being restrictive and unfair.