Dress up or not to dress up

The Formal Tuesdays initiative has both students and staff taking a closer look at how they present themselves at school.

Natalie Pethes, Staff Writer

The idea of Formal Tuesdays, which was recently introduced through a SOAR lesson, has both students and teachers considering how the initiative might impact HEHS.

“My coach says that dressing formally uplifts our moods throughout the day,” said Jessica Hagen, a current senior cross-country and track runner.

Students and teachers both think the idea is nice, but it might be hard for the whole school to participate.

“I think it is a good idea, and it gets students to practice a professional look,” said John Ulrich, science teacher.

Everyone has different ideas of what formal means to them and that could be why some students do not participate.

“Formal to me means anything other than sweatpants,” said Declan Rustay, junior.

“Formal is a dress shirt and nice shoes,” said Jorge Morales, senior.

Since students do not want to over dress or under dress, many relate to just wearing sweatpants or even pajama pants sometimes.

“I have no problem with other students wearing sweats or pajama pants if they are comfortable,” said Ashley Swims, senior.

Comfort is not always formal and a majority of students pick comfort over dressing formally.

“Sometimes I feel worse when I dress up for school because sometimes my clothes are uncomfortable; then I feel distracted the whole day,” said Hagen.

Other than being uncomfortable, students said that they feel more prepared, better about themselves, and confident when dressing formally to school.

“I feel that I perform better because if I look good then I feel good,” said Morales.

“Students should try to dress properly, but teachers should focus more on education then how we dress,” said Robert Fernandez, freshman.

Ulrich said that when his students are dressed formally, it shows seriousness and that they care how teachers portray them.

Although Hagen thinks that Tuesdays are a good day to dress formally, many students and even teachers would rather dress nice on a different day.

“Fridays would be the best day because it’s the end of the week and weekend is next,” said Grace Saurbier, freshman.

“Mondays would be the best so you can start your week off right,” said Fernandez.

“Wednesdays would be the best,” said Ulrich.

After being informed about Formal Tuesdays, there has not been a huge increase on students dressing formally on Tuesdays or even cutting the sweatpants out of their outfit choices.

The seven interviewed students all said that this has not changed the way they dress for school on Tuesdays.

“It is nice when students dress formally, but I believe that they should be able to dress how they want and do it while they can before entering the professional world,” said Ulrich.