SCRANTON, Pa. — With the new school year comes a new dress code in the Scranton School District, and some students said it's about time.
“Sometimes I would pick out an outfit, like the night before, and wake up and realize they might call me out for this. It would just be a lot of stress in the morning,” said Rachelle Rios, a senior at Scranton High School.
Bryan Barbosa, a junior at West Scranton High, echoed this sentiment.
“I kind of like it now, you can wear any color you want, and shorts now too because you couldn't wear shorts," said Barbosa.
Before the dress code changed students could only wear solid colors, had only a handful of choices for colors and they couldn't wear logos or dresses.
"Miserable, I hated it; I think khaki is the worst color possible. I didn't like it," said Alexa Sobolewski, a sophomore at Scranton High.
"It's like repetitive to have to keep buying uniforms every year and me being involved in many sports and activities here. It's annoying having to buy uniforms and worry about going back to school shopping when I have so much spirit wear," said Zahir Kennedy, a junior at Scranton High.
With the new dress code, spirit wear colors and patterns are allowed, along with dresses and skirts. However, jeans, sweatpants, and yoga pants are still off-limits.
"I don't think it was enough because all we did was change the colors of things; when we're talking about the dress code, we're talking about actually changing what we're wearing; we're not talking about 'oh, we want a blue shirt,'" said Makayla Webb, a senior at Scranton High.
“It's not really like a change; they changed it because we wanted a change, but I feel like there's more stuff that we want to wear that we can't wear," said Kennedy.
Some students view the change as a step forward.
"We're taking a right step into getting a better dress code," said Sobolewski.
Although the dress code changes don’t affect all students equally, many students view the change as a good one.
"I never really had to worry about dress code, but I do know have a lot of people that did have problems with it, so that makes me happy for them," said Rios.
Some students are planning to push for even more changes as the school year continues. The school board are responsible for denying or accepting any proposals.