Letter to the Editor: Disappointed with CCHS graduation dress code

As we watch our children grow and strive to achieve great things and graduate, I would like to say shame on Charles City High School. I was in attendance for the graduation May and what I saw disturbed me.

Parents, grandparents, and loved ones were being turned away at the door due to their attire. Let me say that the attire loved ones had on were black jeans, nice shirts and dress shoes; nothing with holes or disrespectful.

The same theme kept coming up; “We have never had a dress code before?” Charles City decided there should be a dress code for the last four years. However, it has never been enforced until the night of May 24.

I personally have attended the last three graduations and have never seen anyone stopped at the door. This year, there was no jeans, beach wear, baggy clothes and so forth. However, there was very questionable attire being admitted into the ceremony. If you had on a mini skirt, brown, orange, or white jeans and high heels you were admitted into the ceremony.

Charles City is in a very rural community and with these hard social and economic times not everyone can afford to go out and buy new clothes. These parents, grandparents, etc. all deserved to watch their loved one graduate. We as a community should be proud that the class of 2013 overcame a great deal of hardship, be it physical, emotional, or financial, to come to this point in their lives.

It cost a great deal of money just to get to this point (graduation gown, cap, senior dues, pictures, announcements). Many of our graduate’s parents could barely afford these fees just to watch their child graduate. With the dropout rate in rural communities climbing each year, why were these parents not allowed to celebrate the success of their graduate?

These young adults worked hard for the last 12 years and earned the right to graduate. I saw elderly crying because they were turned away. I saw young graduates crying because their parents were not allowed into the ceremony. I saw the uncle of the graduate who sang the opening for the ceremony turned away.

What have we come to in today’s society that it is more important what you wear to the graduation, then supporting the person who graduated? Again I say shame on you Charles City High School.

Christine Adkins
Charles City