Bartram Trail High School is receiving a great deal of criticism from parents and Twitter onlookers for their decision to Photoshop 80 girls in their yearbook photos so that their shirts covered any perception of cleavage. The school has been criticized for strict, sexist dress codes before, according to the Florida Times Union, making students lift their hands above their heads to check if their midriffs would be exposed.
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Jacksonville reporter Ben Ryan tweeted out images of high school student Riley O’Keefe, on which showed the image she believed would be shown in the yearbook, the other the modified version. To be clear, the first one is also completely modest and inoffensive:
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There turned out to be far, far more of these alterations made in the yearbook, with a count of almost 80 now:
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Parents are furious at the message the editing sends, especially to the girls themselves.
“Our daughters of Bartram deserve an apology,” a mom told WJAX-TV. “They are making them feel embarrassed about who they are.”
Another mother named Adrian Bartlett said her daughter was one of the girls targeted.
“I think it sends the message that our girls should be ashamed of their growing bodies, and I think that’s a horrible message to send out to these young girls that are going through these changes,” Bartlett told the Florida Times Union.
Bartram Trail High School released a statement to WJAX to say that the digital alterations were made if “pictures violated the student code of conduct, and all yearbook photos had to follow dress code guidelines.”
Those guidelines state that “students are prohibited from wearing clothing that exposes underwear or that exposes body parts in an indecent or vulgar manner” and girls’ top that expose any part of the shoulder is considered vulgar and “distracting.”
O’Keefe had worn her outfit in her yearbook photo into the school’s office and says she was told it was acceptable, so the situation was especially shocking.
“You’re not only affecting their photo,” O’Keefe said. “You’re making them uncomfortable and feel like their bodies aren’t acceptable in a yearbook.”
Another student, ninth grader Zoe Lannone, felt that editing her image made her feel unnecessarily sexualized.
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“I felt confident that day and I looked good, in dress code,” Lannone said.
The school district spokeswoman, Christina Langston, said teacher Anne Irwin was the yearbook coordinator who made the dress code call over the photos. The school’s website does warn students that their images “may be digitally adjusted” so they were warned.
“Bartram Trail High School’s previous procedure was to not include student pictures in the yearbook that they deemed in violation of the student code of conduct, so the digital alterations were a solution to make sure all students were included in the yearbook,” said Langston.
Parents may receive a refund, if no one has yet signed the yearbook and say they are “receiving feedback” for next year. So far, the feedback seems pretty bad.
*First Published: May 22, 2021, 8:14 am
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