Recently, the J-DHS administration—while making it known that students of all grade levels can wear Halloween costumes to school on Friday, October 19—announced a list of restrictions and limitations on all Halloween costumes worn to or near the school premises. There have been many different reactions to this declaration.
First things first, though. The list of restrictions reads as such:
- No dull colors may be worn on anybody’s costume; the saturation value must be 60% or higher.
- No blood, organs, tears, sweat, weapons, or sad faces may appear on any costume worn by students.
- If a student is to wear a costume of a named character, it must be one such character from a 2000s era children’s TV show.
- No student may come to school wearing a costume made from cardboard, in any percentage.
- All students must be prepared to give a presentation in song form about what their costume is and why they chose to wear that costume.
- The costume of any J-DHS student must be worn over some piece of J-DHS-branded clothing, such as a t-shirt, hoodie, etc.
- If a student wears a generic costume such as a witch, vampire, ghost, or pumpkin, then they are exempt from the color saturation rule.
As you can probably imagine, many students are unhappy about this. For the days following, students have been protesting during lunch breaks by carrying and wearing cardboard signs painted with dull colors, depicting sad faces, and featuring pasted images of famous characters from popular media. The school has done nothing to stop these protests.
One protester, Emelia Ramblings, said, “I spent all month on my Shrek costume! How can the school treat me like this?”
Another of these young activists stated, “I’ve gotta trick-or-treat in this costume, I don’t wanna have to abandon my beautiful cereal box costume!”
On Friday, however, almost all of the protesters had dispersed and roaming the halls were students of all ages dressed up as characters from children’s programs, paper mache and foam costumes of witches, ghosts, pumpkins, and named characters such as Barney, Spongebob, the cast of “The Fresh Beat Band,” Scooby-Doo and his crew, and most abundantly (67% of all costumed students), Blue from “Blue’s Clues.”
While it is clear that there is still some unrest among these students, some of the less disgruntled have stepped forward and shared some benevolent words on the topic.
“Honestly, it was kind of nice taking this trip down memory lane. I might stick with my Partick Star costume this year,” stated one young man.
“We got a lot more done in class than in previous years,” said a group of seniors and juniors.
“I liked the singing!” said a freshman with wide eyes.
One teacher, who would prefer to remain anonymous, told us, “I’ve never been so proud of my students. They managed to keep their costumes on all throughout the day, in all my classes, and there were no major distractions or disruptions!”
There is, however, one aspect of J-D’s Halloween traditions that was tragically ruined by the abundance of similar costumes. In the end, no awards were handed out as not one costume was unique or noteworthy above the others.
Some are still apprehensive about trick-or-treating in the neighborhoods surrounding J-DHS, but many seem glad to be able to either use their intended costumes or their new J-D-approved costumes.
As of now, it is unclear whether or not the school intends to affix these costume changes for future years, but if they do so, take this as a notice to approach costuming in a different manner in coming years.
