Our reminder system is based on compliance, built on a community agreement to follow the rules that the school has set. Still, in recent times, students and a handful of teachers have created tension regarding reminders. This type of tension can be seen through different types of rules, mostly in the dress code. Looking into the dress code can give us a good overview of how the reminder system works for students and how it affects them.
First, when it comes to understanding the dress code, it’s important to understand what the reminders are meant to do for students, like how Principal Ms. Tenorio explained firsthand, “[the reminder system] is a system that provides clarity on behaviors [the school] wants students to grow.”
The school wants students to start learning from mistakes and how to grow from them, and students do seem to come to understand that.
Knowing that, it gives students a good view of how school rules, like the dress code, use the reminder system to do such things, and most of the time, it works for students.
Cesar Robles said, “The dress code is good… I don’t mind [it].”
He understands the goals of the dress code and comes to accept them, like many others. Even students who have broken this come to see the importance of it, Wendy Quijada said, “the dress code is necessary when someone is completely out of uniform”, but she also mentions that “but sometimes it’s totally unnecessary to get dress coded for black jeans [when the school doesn’t specify what shade].”
Quijada goes on to explain that she learned how to correct her mistake and came to understand the necessity of the code, but she also states that she doesn’t ignore the fact that receiving reminders for a simple disagreement on what shade of black the school wants is something she feels frustrated about.
Angela Luna gives a bigger picture on it, when the school gave reminders for her shade of pants, she came to say that “[it opened] my eyes and realized that although Brio supports… professionalism… they don’t provide alternatives… [since] not many parents have the financial support or time to go and buy [things like]… black dye [to darken the color of the pants]”. Luna doesn’t completely disobey the code, but that’s only to avoid more reminders, and comes to say that the system isn’t really helping her become better, as the school claims.
Overall, students are aware of their expectations, and those who break the dress code and receive reminders tend to learn from the experience and make improvements. However, as shown, it doesn’t really help others; the reminders don’t help others understand their mistakes and only cause students to change because they will avoid reminders in the future. The reminder system doesn’t fully help students change for the better by learning from their mistakes; instead, it only makes it harder for students to fully understand the community agreement the school claims the system helps to maintain, nor the clear behaviors the school wanted to let students to grow from.
