New changes come to the BSM handbook for 2017-2018
New changes to the handbook include an updated dress code.
Hats, hoods, off the shoulder/cold-shoulder shirts, and backpacks are not allowed.
September 27, 2017
The student handbook has made specific revisions for the school year of 2017-2018. Some of the changes are that no hoods should be worn during the school day, backpacks are to be stored away before first period, and no off the shoulder (“cold-shoulder”) shirts are allowed.
Senior High assistant principals, Seborn Yancey and Mary Andersen evaluate the new styles and apparel yearlong, and change the handbook accordingly. “We take notes in our handbook all year, and we get together in June and decide what has become difficult to enforce for teachers, and what has become a rule that needs to change,” Andersen said.
This year, backpacks are prohibited to carry to first period. This rule was shifted and has become strictly enforced. “The rule has always been that backpacks must be kept in lockers during the school day, and in the past, I have allowed them to go into first hour, so kids arriving late wouldn’t be tardy, and they were supposed to be putting them in their lockers before homeroom and that just wasn’t happening,” Andersen said.
Since BSM is a Catholic school, the dress codes must agree with three rules: neatness, cleanliness, and modesty. “Schools always need to pay attention to current styles and in a Catholic school, whether current styles conform to the three basic principles of dress code. Looking around as all the styles changed with the cold shoulder shirts, so many of them are perfectly modest, but so many were not. So many were very revealing and yes there was a sleeve, but almost nothing else and so we had to make a clear determination,” Andersen said.
Students are allowed to wear sweatshirts, though the hood must stay off the head at all times during the school day. “The hoods, we have never put into the handbook, even though we have enforced it all along, but a hood is the same thing as a hat. And for at least five years we have not enforced that here,” Andersen said.
