Most parents teach their children to listen to adults or at least the adults in charge. Adults are the ones that make the rules and these rules should be applied to everyone, not just a certain group.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for Tony Alarcon and his daughter, Demetra. What he did to fight for his daughter’s equal treatment under school rules is what every parent would and should do for their child.
It was a normal day for Tony Alarcon. The sun was out, making it an abnormally hot day for even for California standards, and he had already dropped his daughter off at Raymond J. Fisher Middle School.
He had already started his workday when he received a call from his daughter’s principal. Immediately, his mind began to race as to what the issue could be. The principal asked Tony if he could come pick up his daughter or bring her a change of clothes—she had gotten in trouble at school for her attire.
Thinking about her blue romper that he remembered her wearing that day he wasn’t sure of the issue. Instead of taking her out for the day he opted to bring her a change of clothes.
Demetra’s father went home and picked out a tank top and denim shorts and brought them to the school. Once he got to there, he was told that Demetra’s first class teacher deemed her outfit to be inappropriate and sent her to the principal’s office.
Although Tony knew that there was a dress code, he wasn’t sure which code his daughter had been in violation of. Believing that the principal knew the rules best he handed over the new set of clothes and waited for his daughter to change and come back. This is when things took a turn for the worst.
Upon returning to her father and the principal, Demetra was told that her new outfit was still inappropriate. Tony unable to hold back his surprise, immediately asked what the issue was with the denim shorts and plain tank top?
The shorts obviously covered her adequately and the tank top was standard attire for this time of year, so what could be the issue? Knowing he had seen other students at the school dressed similarly, he began to press the administration on why his daughter was being singled out?
The principal began to say something about the fingertip test. Tony watched as his daughter put her hands to her side and noticed that her shorts stopped just barely above her fingers. There was no way that the administration could have known where her fingertips would have come by just eyeing it, even with years of experience! This is when he knew there was something more.
At this point the principal admitted that the biggest reason for Mr. Alarcon’s daughter being removed from the class was because she was a distraction for the boys in the class.
Shocked, Tony asked the administrator to repeat what they had just said. Knowing what they had just openly admitted, the administrator tried to go back to the dress code, but the cat was already out of the bag.
This new piece of information made Tony’s mind up! He wasn’t going to let this go. Seeing how his daughter had been called out in the middle of class in front of everyone, he knew that he was going to fight for her!
It wasn’t fair that the girls must wear more clothes in the hot weather because the boys would not be able to concentrate! And what of the people who had longer arms or legs? The rules seemed beyond biased!
Mr. Alarcon decided to not start a scene there in the school, as he realized that this was going to be war—not a single battle. Tony began asking his daughter’s friends what they thought of the dress code. They all replied that the dress code was not fair, nor was it enforced equally.
Mr. Alarcon steadily became angrier about the situation and his daughter being singled out for what was obviously a well-documented poorly constructed dress code. Armed with this knowledge, Tony made his next move.
Tony began to reach out to the media to tell the world how his daughter and other young ladies found themselves singled out due to unfair dress codes. He also realized that the problem existed at other schools, not just theirs.
Apparently, this type of dress code was a norm around the country! How could we teach our children about equality and fairness when even the schools that they went to had dress codes that were enforced unequally?
In 2016, protests began in many schools demanding that changes be made to the dress codes. It was also important to the students that they not feel as if they were being treated unfairly due to, “race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or other identity markers.” These new changes have had rippling effects across the country.
Some schools began to listen and started paying closer attention to what the students and their parents were asking for. Some of these administrators also began to hold talks with the students to understand and accommodate.
Many schools have begun to evaluate and change their dress codes to go along with the changing of the times. Presently, hats, leggings, and other previously banned items are now acceptable in many school dress codes.
Although the new rules are less oppressive, there are still items that remained banned, but most of these items would be inappropriate in any situation. However, administrators are becoming increasingly open to the ideas of shifting the way that they look at how dress codes impact our adolescents.
The main reason we send our children to school is to learn—life lessons as well as scholarly lessons. However, when they encounter circumstances such as this in an environment which we tell them is supposed to be fair and encouraging, it sends the wrong message.
We all know the world is not fair, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want it to be. When the environment we send our kids to looks or judges them differently based on things like their clothes we send a message that says it is ok to make these judgments later in life. Luckily, there are parents in the world like Tony who will fight for their children’s rights to equality.
