Adorning her typical tank top with low-rise jeans, junior Sam Santillan enjoys the new wave of the administration’s less restrictive dress code enforcement.

“Last year was pretty bad because [former Assistant Principal Catherine Halbuer] was on my booty for literally everything I wore,” she said. “But this year, it’s been nice because I was wearing a top with spaghetti straps the other day, and [Assistant Principal Sarah] Perry just walked by and said, ‘Hi.’ She didn’t give me any problems with it.”

To simplify the main school clothing expectations into “an easy way to help people remember what they should cover up,” Assistant Principal Sarah Perry implemented the BBB policy, which stands for boobs, butt and belly.

“[The BBB dress code] was built has a shortened kind-of way to talk about the issues that arise ,” Perry said. “I use it for clarity, so that students think when they’re getting dressed ‘what do I need to make sure is covered up before I get to school?’”

Junior Bailey Kidd said she completely agrees with the BBB policy.

“You shouldn’t be wearing tiny tops or really short shorts, just because it’s not a good look,” she said. “In general, it’s not the polite and classy thing to do for anyone and nobody wants to see that.”

While Perry said shoulders are not the enemy, she cited tube tops as being not allowed at school due to excessive skin showing.

“Ideally we wouldn’t see bra straps so and that’s part of the clothing learning experience, figuring out how to dress your body appropriately, and part of that is clothing that covers bra straps and things like that,” Perry said. “Am I going to chase people around for straps? Probably not, but I might have a conversation like, ‘just so, you know, we can see your bra straps. Maybe choose a different shirt next time.’ I’m not necessarily going to write a violation for that, though. The language in the dress code is that all undergarments should be covered completely.”

Perry said the dress code should be enforced for clothing deemed “distracting” or “revealing.”

“The intention is making sure we’re all just dressed appropriately for the educational environment,” Perry said. “We want people to be able to get in the classroom and learn, teachers be able to teach and not have those things being distracting. We’re not going to nitpick over things if they’re not distracting the educational environment. I’m not going to waste your time. We’re not going to waste our time.”

While casual clothing is allowed, Perry said she doesn’t recommend wearing ‘home clothes’ in an academic environment.

“So if [you’re wearing pajamas and] they are covering up your undergarments, and they’re not depicting any inappropriate things, then, while I wouldn’t encourage it … they’re not something we’re going to do a dress code violation for,” Perry said. “This is kind of your job, it’s your professional setting. Our goal here is to help prepare you for things after high school, so a working environment where you’re not going to wear pajamas.”

Santillan said she was so exhausted of getting in trouble for wearing conservative pajama pants and is happy they’re no longer considered a violation.

“I used to get dress coded and my parents would get emailed because I was wearing plaid pajama pants, and I thought it was so stupid,” she said. “I feel like as long as it’s not infringing on your ability to learn, or other people’s ability to learn than of course you should be able to wear whatever you want. I really can’t see a problem with pajamas, so I’m glad [administration is] more chill about it this year.”

Perry said her main concern is inappropriate references “because they usually take the conversation away from the educational conversation.”

“Profanity will be dress coded, even though the intention there is not necessarily aimed at somebody,” Perry said. “It’s still that written profanity, that’s a constant visual and it’s not going to be allowed. We have older kids who we want to be role models for the younger kids here, so that’s definitely a factor. But when we’re in a semi-professional setting here, at this point, this is your job, so to wear some vulgar or profane language, it’s just not appropriate.”

Senior Jonathan Santoso was informally dress coded for his T-shirt of a concert tour with profanity in its name.

“I was walking into class, and [my teacher] saw my shirt and she pulled me to the side and said, ‘Jonathan, you obviously cannot wear that shirt here,’” he said. “She told me I could choose to go to the bathroom or go to the front office. I went to the bathroom and changed my shirt inside out. I feel like that was a really reasonable approach to me wearing an inappropriate shirt.”

Other than obscene, profane or sexually explicit symbols, individual expression is encouraged at school.

“We looked at the language in the dress code a little bit too, because it used to talk about hair color, piercings, [wallet chains, exposed tattoos,] and things like that,” Perry said. “Those are expressing your personalities, and aren’t disruptive to learning environment, and therefore, are not something that we’re going to address.”

Perry said a concern over enforcing dress code is that clothes fit differently on every person, making the process blatantly subjective.

“There are so many body types and you guys are growing, so it’s typically going to be more of a conversation about those things rather than yelling at you guys,” Perry said. “I’d like to emphasize a focus more on positive growth and learning. Somebody’s really only going to get in trouble for dress code if after I’ve had a conversation with you, you’re continuing to then choose to make those choices, it becomes more a different conversation, because really, now you’re choosing not to make a good choice. At that point less about the dress code and more about the fact that you’re just willfully doing something that we’ve asked you not to do. In terms of the dress code, it’s just really more of a focus on positive choices and staying in the classroom to learn.”