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I’m a first year male teacher looking for input on tactfully handling female student dress code violations. All homeroom teachers at my private school are expected to resolve dress code problems before students are sent to first period. I’ve had two recent incidents where I was cited for failing to enforce dress code standards in my homeroom.
Both incidents are similar in that I failed to address female students coming to homeroom, then going to first period, still wearing sweatpants under their uniform skirts. While technically our student handbook forbids students arriving to school with sweatpants under skirts, our principal permits it as long as the sweatpants are removed before homeroom – generally when students first go to their lockers, because our winter climate has been bone chilling.
My reluctance to enforce the policy stems primarily from embarrassment, as a male authoritative figure, in having to instruct any high school aged female to “remove her sweatpants” before she can leave my homeroom. But on the other hand, I cannot allow myself to get anymore administrative citations. My inexperience makes me dread having to enforce dress code rules under these circumstances.
Follow the policy. You're a first year teacher and have already been tagged twice.
Just say, "Muffy, you know the policy about sweatpants, please come into compliance".
Exactly.
You don't have to actually tell her to take off her pants.
Do it a couple of times, and you won't have to remind them anymore. If you can't bring yourself to make them follow the minor rules, how do you expect them to respect other rules like cheating etc?
You don't have to actually tell her to take off her pants.
Do it a couple of times, and you won't have to remind them anymore. If you can't bring yourself to make them follow the minor rules, how do you expect them to respect other rules like cheating etc?
I'm guessing he's worrying about if the girl pretends she doesn't know what she did wrong.
Or if she's dumb enough to sincerely not know the rule.
I don't think making them follow minor rules automatically assumes they won't follow major rules though. Most people know cheating is wrong. A dress code isn't even really accurate in the first place, unless they've had problems with kids taking advantage before.
Couldn't the student just tear the copy up if they know the teacher won't actually say anything?
That would then be defiance, worthy of a variety of less pleasant repercussions than just being told to go to the restroom and remove their sweatpants.
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I’m a first year male teacher looking for input on tactfully handling female student dress code violations. All homeroom teachers at my private school are expected to resolve dress code problems before students are sent to first period. I’ve had two recent incidents where I was cited for failing to enforce dress code standards in my homeroom.
Both incidents are similar in that I failed to address female students coming to homeroom, then going to first period, still wearing sweatpants under their uniform skirts. While technically our student handbook forbids students arriving to school with sweatpants under skirts, our principal permits it as long as the sweatpants are removed before homeroom – generally when students first go to their lockers, because our winter climate has been bone chilling.
My reluctance to enforce the policy stems primarily from embarrassment, as a male authoritative figure, in having to instruct any high school aged female to “remove her sweatpants” before she can leave my homeroom. But on the other hand, I cannot allow myself to get anymore administrative citations. My inexperience makes me dread having to enforce dress code rules under these circumstances.
I absolutely get why this makes you uncomfortable. I'm a little troubled that they apparently don't have the option to wear pants.
Make copies of the dress code and keep them handy. Anytime you see any student in violation of any part of the dress code highlight the section in neon yellow, hand the page to them telling them to sign and date it, put the sheet in a special "dress code violations" folder, then tell them they have 4-5 minutes to go to the locker room or restroom to become in compliance.
The reason you are saving the sheets is to 1) keep a running record in case someone has a pattern of violations, and 2) proof that you do the same thing to all dress code violators - not just telling girls to take off sweat pants.
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Couldn't the student just tear the copy up if they know the teacher won't actually say anything?
That's not how rules and laws work.
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