Dress down days for last week’s Catholic Schools Week celebration were a little different than they had been in the past, and Archbishop Carroll students had some things to say about the changes.
The student council planned a week of full dress down days but the administration shut it down.
“I am not fully sure of the whole reason, but I know part of it is that students do not follow the dress code and tend to misbehave more on full dress-down days,” said student council president Theresa Laphen, a senior. “Student council has been trying to ‘fight back’ a little to get us more dress-down days, but sometimes we come short and the administration says no. It’s frustrating for most that it has to be like this, but it has been said that it just is how it is for now.”
Students’ lack of conformity to the dress down themes led the administration to make a change, according to Mrs. Julia Young, assistant principal for student affairs.
“This year, we opted for partial dress down days on Wednesday and Thursday because we are hoping to improve student participation in the given theme,” Mrs. Young said.
Laphen disagreed with the administration’s move.
“Just because some people don’t follow the rules shouldn’t mean everyone has to suffer,” she said.
Senior Grace Plechner agreed with Laphen.
“I think it’s different this year because not everyone follows the themes but it’s unfair to take it away from everyone,” Plechner said.
On Monday seniors and sophomores enjoyed a full dress-down day because they were the winners of the class wars that took place earlier in the year. Class wars were hosted to highlight Carroll’s red and white school colors. The senior and sophomore classes went against the juniors and freshmen. Throughout homecoming week, there were various activities to earn points for the teams.
“For example, if you found the Patriot stuffed animal, your team would get x amount of points, or if you answered the trivia question right or how many people in your grade dressed up in the theme,” Laphen said. “At the end of the week, we tallied up all the points, and the red team (seniors and sophomores) won.”
Because of Mass on Tuesday, freshmen and juniors didn’t get to have a dress down day for two days in a row.
The attire student council set for Wednesday was Catholic school top. This meant the bottom half of the winter uniform, paired with Sperrys, was still required.
On Thursday, students got to wear their shoes of choice. Although being able to wear sneakers to school can be more fun than just putting on Sperrys, it might not be that enjoyable for some because many people already have shoe passes.
“I just asked my doctor to write me one, because my foot hurts from track sometimes,” said Tess Knisely, a freshman.
