A Texas mother is speaking out after her 12-year-old daughter was ‘humiliated’ by a school employee for wearing tight pants to school.
Shallen Fishel said her daughter, a seventh grader at Huckabay ISD in Stephenville, called her on just the second day of school to say she had been told her outfit violated the dress code and that she needed to change clothes.
Fishel later shared a photo on social media showing her daughter wearing the ‘inappropriate’ outfit.
The middle school-aged girl could be seen wearing long, flared athletic pants and a cropped shirt, an outfit her mother said was her daughter’s ‘go-to.’
‘This is her typical go-to-type of outfit,’ Fishel told NBC5. ‘Very simple, what she would coin “basic.”‘
The incensed mother called the experience humiliating and questioned the district’s outdated dress code.
‘There’s no major concerns with having a dress code, but it certainly needs to fit the times,’ she said.
According to her daughter, administrators said that if she wore those pants, her shirt needed to cover her bottom.
‘If tights are worn in place of appropriate shorts or trousers, the buttocks of the individual must be covered with a shirt or sweatshirt.’
Fishel, however, said the rule hasn’t been enforced in the past and believes the policy hasn’t been updated since 2007.
‘There’s no major concerns with having a dress code, but it certainly needs to fit the times,’ she told NBC5.
Her bigger concern, however, is the way the rule was enforced. Fishel claimed some girls were made to stand in class to be checked while boys remained seated.
Her daughter, she said, was then pulled aside and into the hallway.
‘I think that leads to body shaming,’ Fishel said, holding back tears.
‘It’s certainly hard that I cannot fix how leadership made her feel. They can say “I’m sorry, or we’re going to change how we approach dress code enforcement,” but she’s not going to forget. She’s not going to forget how you made her feel.’
On August 8, the same day Fishel posted about the incident, Huckabay ISD addressed dress code enforcement on its Facebook page.
‘Moving forward, if there is a concern regarding dress code, staff will have a private conversation with the student and the student will be sent to the front office,’ the school wrote on Facebook.
When asked about Fishel’s claims, the district told NBC5 that the worry-stricken mother ‘has not reached out to the district.’
‘The district has heard this rumor, via hearsay and social media. Unfortunately, the parent with this concern has not reached out to campus or district administration.
‘We have no reason to believe anything inappropriate has occurred, but we do encourage parents and students with concerns about dress code or dress code enforcement to share those concerns with the campus principal or district administration,’ the statement continued.
Fishel said she plans to raise the issue at the school board meeting on Thursday night.
‘We’re not against a dress code being enforced. I’m against humiliation, degradation,’ she said.
Daily Mail has reached out to the school for comment.