This was the outfit I wore to school today. I spent forever doing my hair, made an effort to actually wear makeup, wore jewelry, the whole nine yards, which I seriously never do. I wanted to get away from the normal t-shirt and jeans I usually wear so that I could take cute pictures with the Seniors on their way out of high school for the last time.
If you’ll notice, the front of the skirt is more than halfway down my thigh and I even had shorts on underneath. There’s no way anyone was seeing anything under this skirt.
At my school we have a “knee length” rule for all bottoms. I got through periods 1 through 4 with not even a comment from a teacher or administrator. All I got was compliments from many students, which made me feel awesome about myself.
In lunch, I go to the vending machine to get water. The second I turn around, there’s the Principal right in my face. “Hi there, your skirt is very pretty, but it’s way too short.”
“Well Mr.Crouch, I am pretty tall, and—“
“But that’s not what matters. I’m saying that if the sheer fabric wasn’t there, the part underneath wouldn’t be legal. So you’ve got two options, you can either go to ISS, or change into something appropriate. What do you want to do?”
“Um, well I think I might have something. I’ll change.”
“Okay, and come right back and show me what you’ve changed into.”
I knew I didn’t have anything to change into, because I’d worn this skirt before with no trouble.
I went back to my table to finish my lunch, and shortly after he approached me again.
“I thought you were going to go change?”
“I will, I just wanted to finish my lunch first.”
“Alright. And when you change, go show the front office to see if they approve.”
Now we’re standing at the door waiting to be released from lunch. Bear in mind, this will be 3 times he’s approached me in maybe a 10 minute time span.
“Are you going to change?”
“Yes, I just want to let my 5th period teacher know where I am.”
“What’s your first name again?”
“Emily.”
“And who’s your next teacher?”
“Mrs. Solburg.”
“Which one?”
“Drama.”
“Well I’ll let Mrs. Solburg know you’re going to be a few minutes late to class, alright?”
“Okay…”
So I went to class and let Mrs. Solburg know Mr. Crouch would be coming by soon because of my skirt and that I had no intentions of changing.
He walks in the classroom through the back entrance and says, apparently before scanning the room to see if I’m even in there, “Emily is going to be a few minutes late because she’s changing clothes. Oh, is she in here?”
Duh.
“Make sure you change.”
“Alright.”
He left, and I told my teacher that I didn’t have anything to change into. We looked in her closet and couldn’t find anything that normal people would wear that was both appropriate and matched what I was wearing. I told her to not worry about it, that I’d have my mom sign me out to go home.
When I hung up with my mom, here comes Mr. Crouch again. Mrs. Solburg tells him that I am signing out because I couldn’t find anything to change into.
“Oh, well she told me she had something to change into.”
“Mr. Crouch, I said that I might.”
“No, you said you had something.”
And he walked out.
Let’s count the things that were more wrong than my skirt, shall we?
1. Him approaching me twice while I was trying to eat in our already short lunch time
2. Him interrupting my theatre class twice just to tell me to change
3. The fact he said my skirt wouldn’t be “legal” without the sheer fabric, and also, why would I wear the skirt without the outer fabric?! It’s the whole skirt!
4. My friend Melissa had been trying to schedule a meeting with him since 2nd period to start up a donation drive for the suffering families in Oklahoma, and he was too busy following me around to help her
5. So many Seniors were dressed way more inappropriately than me with tank tops and booty shorts
6. I would have had to miss the Senior Walk even if I didn’t go home because I’d have been in ISS, so I didn’t get to say bye to all of my senior friends
7. I had to disrupt my mom at work to sign me out
8. I had to miss my last two classes when I had already been absent the previous day and needed to make up work
9. He singled me out to the extreme, embarrassed me, and made me cry in front of my class
10. My friend David wore shorts with a 5 inch inseam a few weeks ago and wasn’t even approached by an administrator. It was just shrugged off as him being a “silly boy”
11. He didn’t even want to hear what I had to say about being tall (proportions, man. Put my skirt on any short girl and it would be fine. They don’t make cute skirts that are knee length on a 5’11” girl. It just doesn’t happen.), and he completely dismissed me when I said that I told him I *might* have a change of clothes, even though it was the truth
If he put just half as much effort as he did checking up on me every 5 minutes into, maybe, /running a school/, then everyone probably wouldn’t hate it so much.
Male Teachers are not even suppose to say anything to you about dress code because that insinuates that he was checking you out which counts as a sexual thing. My mother Explained this to me. He wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t actually LOOKING looking.