Ryan Enn Hughes
Call it a flap over fabric - or lack thereof.
Scandalized by shrinking skirts among its female student body, a Catholic high school in Mississauga is going to great lengths to ensure the school's code of modesty is covered.
Kilts, whose varying lengths frustrated policing teachers as skirts were furtively rolled up or subject to guerrilla hemming, are henceforth banned from the uniform altogether.
Under old uniform policy, Philip Pocock Secondary School's female students could choose between black slacks and a plaid kilt meant to reach the knee. But starting next month, pants are the order of the day.
Philip Pocock Principal Henry Tyndorf declined to comment, referring questions to Dufferin Peele Catholic District School Board communications manager Bruce Campbell.
"The issue is primarily one of morality and modesty: Girls are just wearing the kilts way too short and it's difficult to enforce," he said. "You see a student and you have to approach them and say, 'You know, your uniform is too short.' ... It's just really difficult to enforce, and there's way too much time involved.
"We're in the business of educating kids."
Mr. Campbell said there are no statistics kept on how many students have been caught breaking the skirt-length rules, or how much time teachers spend policing them.
He said of the district's 25 Catholic schools, all but six have phased out their kilts, largely for the same reason: Students were continually flouting length rules, creating headaches for teachers charged with monitoring them.
So far, he said, the school has only received three calls from parents upset with the change.
"It's been very minor in terms of negative response. ... It's pretty much accepted as part of the trend."
Fatima Resendes, mother of a Grade 10 student, said she understands concerns about lengths, but the problem is with the skirts themselves.
"I consider the kilt my daughter has short - that's how I got it from the supplier," she said, adding that the skirts come with shorts so aren't as revealing as their lengths suggest.
"There's always a handful of girls that abuse the system, but not the majority."
But Ms. Resendes said what really upsets her is that she doesn't feel parents were properly consulted: Now the two $80 skirts she bought when her daughter entered Grade 9 last year are effectively useless, she said.
"When I signed the application for the school, it was accepted, they cashed my cheque and they told me I needed a uniform and I purchased a uniform that was requested. I feel that was a contract and they have arbitrarily broken that," she said. "Now I'm going to have to go out and buy pants."
Many parents and students, she said, are still in the dark as to the new uniform policy, which is in effect when school starts in September.
"I can guarantee that there's going to be quite a number of girls in kilts on the first day of school."