By Bryan Owens

Featured Art: Ananas (Pineapples) by Charles Martin

Is it against school dress code for a student to wear sweatpants
that say PINK across the rear? I have CC’d the school director.
Please advise.

Though it is not stated explicitly in the student handbook,
I think it is safe to say this article of clothing
is not school appropriate.

If we do not adhere to the dress code policy
as it is stated explicitly, we are doing these kids
a tragic disservice in their preparation for the real world.

I agree, given the suggestiveness of the images it raises
& its placement in relative context with that which
it is alluding to, this article of clothing should not be tolerated at school.

Well, to what extent do we implement
school policy based on our individual theories of how one article,
not explicitly referred to in the handbook, defies or complies
with the fundamental principles of the guidelines?

So does that mean we let slide what is merely not stated
in the handbook?

How is PINK suggestive it’s just a brand name
I have my own pair at home super comfortable

Of course we don’t merely let it slide!!! but if every member
of the faculty is meant to uphold the dress code policy
through individual subjectivity, how can we have any consistency
throughout the faculty? The student has gone the whole morning
with no faculty sending her to the office!!!

PINK is suggestive as sexual innuendo or metonym
for female reproductive parts. Our dress code is in place
to protect our female students from themselves,
thinking it is good to provoke what teenage boys are already thinking.

Comfortable??? I’m so glad for you, but would you wear them to school???

I would if I could! : )

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Bryan Owens has been a teacher of English for eight years in the Houston public
schools. He holds an MFA from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program. His work has appeared in San Pedro River Review, Poetry Quarterly, Boston Poetry Magazine, Inscape, Primitive, The Centrifugal Eye and elsewhere.

Originally published in NOR 18: Fall 2015