School dress code changed after mom asks principal to take daughter shopping.
The sun's up, and so is the amount of school administrators policing girls' clothes, teaching them to be ashamed of their bodies.
Teachers and principals are keen on telling girls what they can't wear, so mom Catherine Pearlman is calling on her daughter's principal to show her what she can.
In a post for Today's community page, Pearlman spoke up about her daughter being punished for her height.
"Dear Middle School Principal: Thank you for sending a note home for the second day in a row to say my daughter was dressed inappropriately for school," Pearlman opens her letter. "I’d like to offer an additional thank you for forcing her to change into large mesh shorts that have been worn by only god knows who and potentially never washed."
She goes on to hilariously call for the principal's help:
To reward you for treating my daughter with such concern, I am cordially inviting you to take my daughter shopping.
Here are the specifications you have to work with. I wish you loads of luck.
She is 5’7” and 13 years old. Built more like her father, she has exceptionally long legs and arms.
She doesn’t like anything pink or purple or frilly.
In addition to being tall, Pearlman's daughter has a particular taste. She won't wear anything with a logo on it, because as every middle school girl knows, that's not cool. But she is into superheroes and Green Day.
Pearlman calls on the principal to find actual clothes that meet the standards they set, like "the fingertip test," where shorts have to be long enough to touch a girl's fingertips with her hands by her sides.
"She has very long fingers which seems to make finding shorts that won’t get her sent to the principal’s office impossible (On the bright side the piano teacher says those fingers are an asset.)," Pearlman adds of her daughter.
Dang. And here's the kicker:
P.S. I forgot to thank you for making it clear to my daughter that her body is somehow a distraction, either to herself or to the boys. I thought she might have missed the message earlier in the year when the gym teacher told her she couldn’t wear yoga pants because the boys aren’t able to control themselves. I appreciate how hard you are working to drive the point home.
After the original post, there was this update.
UPDATE: After this incident I posted a letter to the principal asking her to take my daughter shopping because I was sick of the dress code and because it was impossible to find clothes. Anyway as you may have seen the letter went viral. Since then our district (50k students) changed the code and it's no longer acceptable to say girls are a distraction. The code is also more flexible in what can be worn.
ORIGINAL POST: My girl was dress coded two days in a row. It's impossible to find shorts that are remotely fashionable and below her finger tips. She's tall with long arms and fingers. One more code and she will have detention. And making the policy even more frustrating is that there isn't a dress code for high school.