<p>My youngest D is joining her sister at highschool this fall. They have changed the dress codes from no more than 4 inches above the knee to now being just BELOW THE KNEE!!!</p>
<p>HEHEHEHEHEHE</p>
<p>She has really long legs, even though she isn’t very tall 5’- and is looking at her way too short skirts…I feel just awful</p>
<p>Okay more money for clothes I guess is awful, but ah well</p>
<p>Is it a private school? The length they are requiring seems kind of too much for young girls. I don’t think to the knee or several inches above is at all immodest for teenagers. What is their reason?</p>
<p>Its a Jesuit Prep school, and last year, the girls pushed the dress code limits, so they decided to make it stricter; the threat was no skirts at all!! One hot day, over a hundred girls were in detention cause of short skirts…</p>
<p>To the knee can really be matronly…while at the Catholic Girls highschool, OMG…if the skirts where any shorter it would be a belt…</p>
<p>They will be strict for the first semester, and then you can get away with a little bit…so off we go tomorrow to find some pencil skirts (think 1950s- Rizzo)…maybe with a little flip at the hem</p>
<p>So much fun with a girl that thinks tennis skirts are too long</p>
<p>At least there are longer skirts in the stores now…</p>
<p>Dress code for length of both shorts and skirts at the local high school is fingertip length, when your arms are flat to your sides. I think that’s reasonable, but for some reason it’s not enforced with the cheerleaders - they have the little flouncy skirts and matching panties! Go figure.</p>
<p>Although I think that length restriction is ridiculous, this was a good year for it. Fashion types have dubbed this “the year of the skirt” because there are so many different styles etc. in stores. And many of them would be long enough to satisfy that crazy dress code. Have fun shopping!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, with a crabby 14 year old who thinks any skirt below the mid thigh is gross, I think I will cab it and take a thermos of margaritas to get me through it…
Older D loves long skirts, so she is laffing away at little sis.</p>
<p>I’m not usually a fan of them either, but they’ve got some out that are in such fun, flippy material that they don’t seem as long as they actually are.</p>
<p>Does colour matter? </p>
<p>Is there a B. Moss near you? I found some neat skirts there - some long, some short. One is calf-length and a great peach (with matching white blouse with peach trim) - I get compliments on it all the time.</p>
<p>Below the knee can be quite matronly. Geez, I have suit skirts that are shorter than that.</p>
<p>As an aside, while engaged in bureaucratic pursuit today, I noticed a young woman tug at her skirt as if to pull it down, an almost subconscious act, it seemed. (Though I do look like Johnny Depp and who knows what frame of mind that might put a young woman in.) My Q is: rather than be tugging it down all the time, why not wear 'em two inches longer to begin with? And see how happy you are with the length when you sit down, while you’re at it?</p>
<p>It was confirmed today that they almost got rid of skirts all together…so I guess this was the “compromise”</p>
<p>And I hear the boys are even more upset about the new length, can’t imagine why</p>
<p>And the tugging of the skirt is the counterpart of the guys holding their pants up when they walk</p>
<p>When D started at her German school two years ago, I inquired about a dress code. Language barrier made the question difficult to understand. Director said, “No. No uniforms.” I clarified question. He looked surprised. “Well, you do have to wear SOMETHING!”</p>
<p>Think my D will have some culture shock when she returns?</p>
<p>Binx… let’s just say that citygirlsmom’s school represents one end of a very wide spectrum - as she noted, her daughters attend a private Jesuit prep school. My d. attends a public magnet in the same city, and lets just say that “dress code” means something very different in my d’s world. I don’t even know if the school has a “dress code” - if it does, it must be something analogous to the “must wear SOMETHING” standard of your d’s German school, with “something” defined as “not much”. </p>
<p>My daughter generally has a lot of skin exposed - bare midriff (of course the navel is pierced), plunging necklines. I have seen her take a scissors to a pair of jeans to cut down the front panel – if they aren’t low risers when she buys them, they are before she puts them on. And they are very tight. I’ve seen her wear skirts of all lengths, but she often wears frilly skirts on top of jeans - she assures me that is the current fashion. And footwear can be anything from flip-flops to spike heels. On a dress-down day I’ve seen her go in pajama bottoms. The words “you’re wearing THAT to school?” have passed my lips more than once. </p>
<p>Her school clearly has an anything-goes view of clothing - some kids choose rather outlandish outfits and hairstyles, some kids just go for sloppy and frumpy. On the other hand, my son went to a high school where the style was uniformly sloppy/frumpy – I swear I never saw a kid there who wasn’t dressed entirely in dark blue or black loose-fitting jeans + sweats or t-shirt. </p>
<p>So yeah, there will be culture shock – but citygirlsmom’s school is the exception rather than the rule, at least on the west coast. My d. did attend school overseas for 4 months and dressed far more conservatively, but that’s because it was COLD where she was - so she was wearing nice & comfy pullover knit sweaters.</p>
<p>Wow. Calmom, your D’s school is much more permissive than anything in the Bible Belt where we will probably be returning to! You sound especially tolerant, too! We had a few foster sons who liked the grunge look. The rule was, if I could pull down the pants, they couldn’t wear them. (I never did. Just threatened. That was enough.)</p>
<p>Yes, my D does tend to dress warm, with the ever-present zippered sweater, and she is conservative by nature. But it is nice to not have to measure anything! I have a friend in the US who’s D is tall and skinny, and has a lot of trouble finding shirts long enough, especially since the pants are cut so low. Sometimes D’s midriff shows, and her jeans are low and tight (but not any worse than what I wore when I was her age), but that’s the worst of it. I don’t think I could pay her to wear a skirt to school! </p>
<p>There are other cultural differences: Half of the kids smoke, and carry cigs and lighters (she doesn’t.) In Physics class, the teacher had one kid light up and blow some smoke into a test tube for an experiment. Nearly everyone carries their Swiss Army Knives, and cell phones. (And there are no cheerleaders. And no football team.)</p>
<p>The thing my D can’t believe is when I tell her I wore just about anything during the summer months in HS. (School went well into June, in PA, and nearly everyone took summer classes, too). Schools were not air-conditioned. I wore “hot pants”, halter tops, “Sassy Sets” (am I dating myself?) </p>
<p>Your comment about everyone “dressed entirely in dark blue or black loose-fitting jeans + sweats or t-shirt” reminds me of a debate I heard once against uniforms, when the kids said they didn’t want to all have to look alike. :)</p>
<p>I used to kid my son about the “uniforms” too. He went to an unusual magnet school - it was all academic, but not competitive for admission or in the structure … but no real sports, and none of the usual array of high school EC’s. The emphasis was more on community service. So basically his school attracted really nerdy kids. He wore his jeans baggy, but not loose around the waist - no underwear showing or anything like that.</p>
<p>My d. gets her fashion sense from t.v. programs like the OC. Despite the skimpy dress, she’s not nearly as bad as you describe yourself – I see hot-pant like shorts and halter tops around the house, but not to school. </p>
<p>The kids do all carry cell phones wherever they go - lots of text messaging going on inside the school. Obviously, knives are completely forbidden - a swiss army knife would get a kid suspended ASAP if the kid got caught with it. </p>
<p>Kids do smoke, but not inside school buildings - it is a parking-lot, edge of school property kind of activity. Of course at the schools around here they sometimes smoke other substances than tobacco.</p>
<p>Yeah, our school is getting a bit stricter…so many girls broke dress code last year. Whats funny is, we will drive by a local public highschool, and its almost as if the kids are in a uniform- guys baggy pants, white t shirts, girls tight pants, tank tops - </p>
<p>After coming from a catholic school with uniforms, having a dress code is no big deal really. Just the skirt length- seems a bit Amish (no offense to the Amish)</p>
<p>I saw some kid crossing the street, and his pants fell down, and he wasn’t sure what to do, put down the cases of soda he was carrying, and pull up his pants or waddle to the other side with his pants around his ankles, he chose to waddle…</p>
<p>at least that tacky trend is losing favor</p>
<p>School uniforms are pretty popular down here in the Bible Belt, and although skirt length is a perennial topic (the Catholic high school girls wear more like those Britney Spears plaid skirts), mostly the parents like the uniforms. When they are younger, like 5-8, it cuts way down on the arguments - you have to wear the uniforms. For the older kids, in our city at least, there is no where to go everyone, except the residential science and math school which is a statewide school, requires uniforms of some sort. They still have fashions and ways of expressing themselves, but overall it is great.</p>
<p>I like a dress code. It sets some boundries. And my girls had no problem being individuals in a unifrom, they shined through their actions, not their attire, and on weekends, they could go crazy…what to wear what to wear</p>
<p>binx: there is no dress code in Germany, but my cousin’s principal sent out a letter to the parents this past year that although they support the students’ rights to wear what they want, they should realize that certain things the kids wear cause distraction, etc., and asked the parents to oversee the clothing and make them more appropriate to the classroom. And I remember riding the bus with the girls from Catholic school - they had to kneel on the floor and their skirts (uniform) had to touch the floor and as soon as they walked out the door, they rolled up the skirts at the waistband. (This was a few years ago…)</p>
<p>They still do it!! by the end of the 8th grade, my Ds skirts were so short (combination of growing and me not want by a new skirt they wouldn’t wear again).</p>
<p>
And we were doing that a few <em>decades</em> ago as well. :p</p>
<p>And my sister would “borrow” skirts of mine which I DIDN’T roll up. She would roll them up and you can imagine how they looked when I tried to wear them. :mad: Did not make for good sisterly relations.</p>