Last year, when a male student wore a shirt with a naked woman on it, two students brought it to the attention of administration because the shirt offended them. The student was asked to wear a sweatshirt over his shirt for the rest of the day.

According to the dress code at PHS, clothes that are considered “disruptive or inappropriate to the school’s educational mission and program” are prohibited.

“It’s not a matter of inches, or too short or too long, or anything like that,” assistant principal Irma Muñoz said. “It’s what is appropriate for learning.”

Muñoz said there have only been at most a handful of dress code violations this year, and most of the violations have been for showing undergarments or midriff. There is no punishment besides being asked to change, cover up or put your shirt on inside out, and a phone call home.

“So [bras] are undergarments and they are intended to be undergarments, and so that’s the rationale,” Muñoz said. “Those are clothes to be worn underneath clothes.”

According to Muñoz, she follows the handbook when enforcing the dress code, and she tries to get multiple perspectives from other staff members and come to an agreement on whether something is a violation of the dress code before confronting a student about it.

“It’s very subjective,” assistant principal Eric Mapes said. “One person’s idea of a dress code violation, someone else might not think anything about it.”

In the first few weeks of school, the  administration reviewed the Code of Conduct in classes, including a brief overview of the dress code.

“I like individuality,” Mapes said. “I like freedom of expression. I also want to make sure everyone feels respected, and that’s an important piece to me.”

In her sophomore year, senior Makena Stone was asked to not wear a pair of shorts to school again.

“It really upset me because the way that [administration] said it, they made it sound like they only said it because there were boys giving me looks or something,” Stone said.

Freshman Addie Darden was asked to put a jacket on to cover the back of her bra.

“I think it’s kind of stupid that they make us hide parts of our body that are thought of as sexualized by either the men faculty or male students,” Darden said.