A Victorian high school stopped a Year 11 student from completing her English exam this week because she was wearing the wrong socks.
A 16-year-old student from Mornington Secondary College was sent home in tears after she was told she wouldn’t be allowed to sit her exam on Tuesday because her socks were a breach of dress code – they displayed a Globe brand name on top.
Her mother, Sophie Newton told Daily Mail Australia her daughter, was a good student who had never caused any trouble for the school.
“I honestly feel that sending a good student home for such an insignificant and minor incident is both demoralising and inappropriate,” she told the website.
“If she was cheating I would completely understand them sending her home.”
Mrs Newtwon said the school should have given her daughter a warning before turning her away from an exam – after all, she’d worn the socks to school before without any reprimand.
This isn’t the first time this school dress code infringements have sparked a debate about clothing restrictions.
The debate was started in Australia earlier this year when a 14-year-old girl was suspended from her Melbourne private school for wearing the wrong leather shoes.
McClelland College, in Melbourne’s South-East, requires students to wear ‘black leather lace-up school shoes (not fashion heels)’, and when Riley Filmer came in school in black, leather ‘Vans’ (pictured below), the school reacted by banning her from class for three days.
Her mother, Anne Parker, was furious.
Riley’s offending shoes.
“If I decided to pull her out of school for four days, I would be in trouble,” she says, “But for some reason they can pull my daughter out of classes simply because they don’t like her shoes.”
The school then issued a statement replying that Riley had not been ‘suspended’, but just banned from attending classes, and that Riley was allowed to collect work and homework from the teachers before class. However, her mother disputes this.
“She has been allowed to approach each of her teachers at the beginning of the lesson to ask for work, and some have given her work, but some haven’t,” she says, “It’s the start term and so she is really struggling to complete work because she’s not in class to have things explained to her.”
Emily Reac’s “too red” hair
Another young girl also made news headlines today, after she was prohibited from taking her senior exams because her hair was “too red”.
Emily Reay, a student and budding musician in the UK, has naturally auburn hair and has been regularly dying her hair brighter for over three years. Her teachers, she claims, have now banned her from taking her exams until she re-dyes her hair into a more ‘normal’ colour.
Her school prohibits students from having dyed hair colours in its policy: “The school’s uniform policy clearly states no unnatural hair colours, like blue or green.”
But it was this line that infuriated Emily’s mother.
“Is ginger not a natural hair colour?” she asked.
Emily offered to tie her hair up for the exams, or wear a hat or beanie, but her offer was rejected.
Tiana Parker’s “unacceptable” dreadlocks.
Hair was also a point of contention for two other American schools, who suspended two African-American students for their hair.
Seven-year-old Tiana Parker was forced to switch schools after her teachers branded her dreadlocks as “unpresentable” and “forbidden” as it “distracts from the respectful and serious atmosphere [the school] strives for.”
Tiana’s father, Terrence, disputed this, “She’s always presentable. I take pride in my kids looking nice.”
Vanessa Van Dyke’s “distracting” hair.
12-year-old Vanessa Van Dyke also faced expulsion after she and her mother refused to cut and shape her natural afro hair.
The school’s policy outlawed any hairstyles that teachers deemed to be “distracting”.
“A distraction to one person is not a distraction to another,” said VanDyke’s mother, Sabrina Kent. “You can have a kid come in with pimples on his face. Are you going to call that a distraction?”
A country high school in the US is under fire after they sent home 15-year-old Honor student Macy Edgerly, for wearing knee-length tights (pictured).
In a Facebook post made by her elder sister, Erica criticises the decision, “Not to mention, when you send someone home because of inappropriate clothing, you’re taking them away from their education. So I guess it’s more important for boys to not have distractions, than a woman’s education.”
Facebook users also came to Macy’s defence.
“Why should girls have to base their clothing choices on boys who can’t learn to control themselves?” one person commented on the post.
“I’d love to know when the last time this or any school sent a boy home for wearing something too tight,” said another.
Another 15-year-old girl in Florida has been forced to wear a ‘shame suit’ after her skirt was found to be too short.
Miranda Larkin was forced by the school nurse to wear a long yellow shirt with the words ‘DRESS CODE VIOLATION’ stamped across it.
The girl was reportedly left upset and embarrassed.
“She put on the outfit in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror and just broke down. She started sobbing and broke out in hives,” the girl’s mother revealed.
This almost universal outcry over girl’s school clothes has caught the attention of international media, with the spotlight being turned on school that choose to prioritise dress codes over the education of young women.
