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Care Rumer Portfolio
Rigorous Thinking - SMUHSD Dress Code Revision
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Rigorous thinking for me is the act of examining an artifact thoughtfully and critically to draw meaningful conclusions. These conclusions should be followed up with meaningful actions.
San Mateo Union High School District Dress Code
Dress codes had been important to me since Freshman year PE because of the swimming dress code, but when I had heard that this year many of my female friends have been more dress-coded frequently and seemingly unfairly at San Mateo with the new vice principal at San Mateo High School. This was concerning so I looked into the district school dress code and was also concerned by some of the wording. I applied rigorous thinking in my analysis of the dress code and working to create a more equitable policy. View the updated policy here.
Step 1: Close analysis
Step 2: Research
From this research, I found a valuable example of an ideal dress code and in addition to my previous analysis of the dress code, I added focus on gender identity and body size in addition to race and religion into my proposal rather than only focusing on the impact on female students.
Step 3: Applying evidence
I was able to propose a rough draft of an incremental dress code between the current standards and the Alameda No Shame Dress code because I believed this would be the most effective in getting the proposal accepted by district administrators.
Step 4: Action & Revision
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I reached out to the Director of Student Services, Don Scatena, about my concerns. This led to two meetings among school leadership and Deputy Superintendent, Julia Kempky, to revise the dress code accounting for student perspectives from different schools and backgrounds. Over the course of these meetings, we revised the dress code to account for peoples needs.
After these meetings, Ms. Kempky and I proposed our revised policy to the school board. In my address to the board used ethos, pathos, and logos to help convince the school board of the importance of changing the current policy.
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Ethos: I included working with Mr. Scatena and Ms. Kempky to add authority to my argument.
Logos: I used logos in breaking down why the policy is discriminatory, particularly PE swimming dress codes.
Pathos: I used pathos by discussing the impact the policy had on me and my friends as individuals and when I included "I am a gymnast, and I train with girls who are middle schoolers and underclassmen and I want them to be able to come to school without the fear of judgment of their bodies and expression. I want every student after me to be free from the shame, anger, and distraction dress codes have caused me in the past.."
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We then integrated feedback from the school board regarding adding tobacco products in the "Cannot Wear" section and attempted to clarify the issue of what "entire torso" means.
Step 5: Final Product
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