Pajamas Banned at Vermont High School
Wearing PJs could send you straight to the principal’s office under a newly adopted school dress code, the Bennington Banner reports.
Vermont’s Mount Anthony Union High School has banned students from wearing sleepwear and slippers to school after administrators noticed an increase in students dressed for a slumber party.
Associate Principal David Beriau tells the paper that the slippers posed a safety risk, while wearing pajamas—which have also been banned at some supermarkets in the U.K.—had an adverse effect on students’ work ethic.
“One of the things that made us want to re-evaluate [the dress code] is it was to a point kids were coming to school wearing pajamas and slippers,” he says. “It’s a safety hazard, certainly with slippers, and it also says something to the work ethic. Like anything else, if you get yourself into a mental state about something you’re going to be more prepared to work, and if you come to school in pajamas you’re prepared for something else.”
Hey, you try staying awake during advanced pre-calculus. But the school isn’t just cracking down on flannels and footies. The revised dress code also bans “clothing that is excessively tight so as to be provocative”, as well as bandanas and gang colors.
In an effort to thwart students’ efforts to skirt the existing ban on halters, tube tops, muscle tees, and spaghetti straps, the code now also requires that the straps be at least 1.5 inches wide.
“The straps have to be an inch-and-a-half and it has to be a single strap,” Beriau explains. “We really don’t want to have any kind of underwear showing, so that’s why we want to have more coverage and that should include the back and the front. It should be respectable.
“We’re dealing with trying to reinforce civility, if not initiate it, so we want the clothing to be a statement that these are kids coming to school with respect to each other, themselves and the school and set a tone that is going to be conducive to learning.”
And don't be surprised if you see teachers flipping through the latest issue of Vogue to track down potentially threatening trends, like the, um, pajama one.
“We have to adjust as fashions become more pronounced,” Beriau says. “For example, years ago nobody would come to school in pajama bottoms.”
Who, us? Never. Cough.
Meanwhile, a Florida school district is trying to ban extreme hair and makeup.
