When you’re the new kid in school, few things matter more than making a good first impression. Unfortunately for Miranda Larkin, a 15-year-old sophomore at Oakleaf High, that goal went down the drain just three days into the semester after she decided to wear a skirt that fell a few inches above her knee.
“It was right after first period,” Miranda explained to ABC News. “I was in the hallway and I got stopped by a teacher who told me my skirt was too short and sent me to the nurse’s office. They told me I was going to have to change and put on the dress-code-violation outfit.”
As a transfer student from Seattle, Miranda insisted the infraction was unintentional as she was unaware of Oakleaf’s dress code that requires skirts to be knee-length or longer. But her new-girl status didn’t save her from being forced to wear a neon-yellow T-shirt that read “DRESS CODE VIOLATION,” paired with red sweatpants with the same message down the right leg.
“She’s a good kid,” said Miranda’s mom, Dianna Larkin. “She actually has a perfect disciplinary record. I’m not a rescue mom. I really do believe in punishing my kids if they do something wrong, but this is not about punishing kids. This is about humiliation.”
According to a spokesperson from the Clay County school district, Oakleaf students who violate the dress code are given three options: They can either stay in their clothes and face suspension, arrange for someone to bring them a change of clothes, or don the dress-code violation outfit all day as punishment.
But Miranda says she was only given the latter option.
“My problem is not with the dress code itself,” Larkin wrote in a letter to the media. “I am actually a proponent of school uniforms (which trust me does NOT make my kids happy), and believe that if you break the rules of the school you should be punished regardless of your opinion of the rule itself. My problem is with the public shaming of kids.”
Oakleaf officials say the original dress-code violation outfit was simpler, but kept getting stolen by students who were forced to wear them. They are now reconsidering the school’s guidelines after news of this event came public, but have yet to make a final decision.
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[via ABC News]
