Roped Into Dress Code Compliance

It was the late 1980s. It was my first year of teaching in the inner-city high school, and it was, to say the least, administered a little differently than my previous placement.

We had roughly 2500 students, the principal was EVERY student’s friend and knew all of their names, and he had zero tolerance for dress code issues. The dress code was pretty easy-going, but as the trend to pant beltlines below the butt, even down at the knees, came in for the first time, he had no tolerance.

The day I came in, at the faculty meeting, the ONLY one that year where most of the staff paid any attention and none of them were playing poker, he handed out three-foot lengths of laundry rope. His instructions: If a child has their pants too low, tell them to pull them up. If the child couldn’t keep them up due to a lack of a belt (a common issue related to the trend), then give them the rope and “let them walk around looking like Jethro Bodine” all day.

After the first week, there were no more Jethros or Ellie Maes. The kids REALLY did not like that.