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![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Upper school community holds town hall meeting to discuss community expectations regarding free dress
Jessica Tang (11) speaks during the town hall. “At school, we’re here to learn about ourselves, and I think it’s most important that we have a safe place for us to learn how to express ourselves,” Jessica said.
September 12, 2021
The Associated Student Body (ASB) collaborated with upper school administration to organize a town hall meeting on Wednesday. Students discussed the Community Expectations regarding free dress outlined in the Student Handbook, express their opinions and give suggestions. The meeting was held in the Quad during morning office hours.
In an update to the Upper School Students group on Schoology sent out on Sept. 2, ASB President Dawson Chen (12) posted the following guiding questions for the town hall: How do the current community dress expectations make you feel on campus? What do your ideal community dress expectations look like?
“Over the past week, your elected student representatives have heard your opinions regarding the community expectations for dress,” Dawson wrote in the Schoology update. “We appreciate all your suggestions and are glad to see so many students step up as leaders and advocate for an initiative. Today, ASB discussed this topic thoroughly with Mr. Keller, and we are looking forward to working with you to develop an organized course of action.”
During the meeting, students brought up various points, including concerns about not allowing athletic shorts and enforcing the fingertip length rule. Students also discussed a perceived lack of specificity in the dress code and the way in which the dress code is being enforced.
I think one of the biggest issues is the enforcement of the dress code,” Phoebe Castle (10) said. “I know personally a lot of girls have avoided going to lunch because a teacher has been waiting to dress code them. The enforcement was ridiculous… girls were being forced to raise their hands so that people can dress code them.”
Students expressed confusion towards the current enforcement, despite the fact that the current community guidelines have stayed the same since after an upper school community-driven effort in 2015 to change the then stricter policy.
“I definitely want people to think about it, as well as my main goal is just to go back to the way things were,” said Tara Ozdemir (12), who spoke at the town hall. “There was never an issue with [the] dress code during my whole high school experience.”
Dawson posted notes from the town hall on Schoology as well as a Google form where students can send their opinions and thoughts.
