Mom’s Letter To School Board On Opting Out Of Dress Codes Burns Them Up

Tikhonova Yana/Shutterstock

August 13, 2021, 11:16 am

Schools are opening up in most states in less than a month, even though the highly contagious Delta variant is on the loose and most kids are too young to be vaccinated. Some places have adopted a mask mandate, but many are claiming they can’t enforce students’ mask-wearing.

Featured Video
Hide

Some people have found that very interesting because lots of schools have notorious reputations for enforcing all sorts of dress codes, usually pretty sexist ones that keep girls out of the classrooms for being “distractions” to boys. How can they do one and not the other?

One mom in Chattanooga, Tennessee took the opportunity to point out this hypocrisy in a stinging letter to her school board at Hamilton County Schools, which was then shared by The Tennessee Holler and went extremely viral. Since gaining so much Internet attention, the mom told Raw Story that her goal was “to draw attention to the importance of mask usage in our schools. We need to base decisions around this issue on medical data and be guided by the recommendations of experts in this area. But I’m up for fighting the dress code once we get the mask issue taken care of!”

Advertisement
Hide

Kudos to this Chattanooga mom telling a Tennessee school board that her daughter is now opting out of ALL school dress code restrictions. pic.twitter.com/5xSLLy6v6B

— Mark Elliott (@markmobility) August 12, 2021

It begins:

Good evening,

I am writing to request the parent opt-out form to opt out of the school dress code. As the parent of a daughter at East Hamilton, I find the school’s dress code policy to be misogynistic and detrimental to the self-esteem of young women. Rather than shaming young women into covering their shoulders (and other parts of their body), I believe we should empower female students to have agency over their bodies and to wear clothing that is comfortable for them and contributes to their ability to enhance their learning experience.

In light of the opt-out option related to the recently announced mask mandate, I can only assume that parents are now in a position to pick and choose the school policies to which their child should be subject.

She continued:

As someone who holds a strong commitment to the feminist ideals and desire to raise my daughter to be a strong and empowered woman able to make choices for herself, I find that the school’s dress code policy does not align with my belief system.

I therefore intend to opt out of this policy and send my daughter to school in spaghetti straps, leggings, cut offs, and anything else she feels comfortable wearing to school. Please make a note that she is not, under any circumstances, to be dress coded, as I have clearly communicated my decision to opt out of this policy.

Seems fair!

Share this article

*First Published: August 13, 2021, 11:16 am