I was reading about Richwoods High School on the Historic Peoria website tonight, and it reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of in a long time.
In 1987 I was a junior at Richwoods, and the school dress code didn’t allow any students to wear shorts. Fair enough. However, the dress code did allow the girls to wear mini-skirts. Many guys saw this as a double-standard and complained pretty loudly about it, especially as the days (and the classrooms) got hotter.
At one point, several guys actually came to school in mini-skirts. That was funny, and more than a little disturbing. I didn’t participate, being more shy and reserved back then, and I’m relatively certain that Sean Matheson (who was a year behind me at Richwoods) didn’t either.
Well, the administration put a stop to that pretty quickly. So the next course of action, naturally, was for the students to go “on strike.” That’s right, they skipped class and sat out on the sidewalk in front of the school with hand-made signs to protest the “no shorts” dress code policy.
All of this garnered the school a surprising amount of local publicity. I remember seeing it on the news, and Crow Carroll even did a parody song about it to the tune of “Every Breath You Take” by The Police. (If you haven’t heard Crow Carroll parodies before, check out Wayne R. Miller’s site for some samples; “Metamora Girls” is especially good. These were a staple of local top-40 radio when I was in high school.)
Believe it or not, the little student-uprising worked, and Richwoods finally relented and allowed students to wear shorts when it got above a certain temperature. As I recall, we all considered it a great moral victory at the time. Looking back on it now, though, I think we probably could have put our efforts to better use… like, maybe, studying.
I remember that!!! That was HILARIOUS … and yes, very disturbing.
Were you there when they let the pig loose for a senior prank?
And speaking of disturbing … there was the other senior “prank” where they filled the junior hall boys bathroom with roadkill. That was gross, to say the least. I didn’t quite get the humor of that one.
“As I recall, we all considered it a great moral victory at the time. Looking back on it now, though, I think we probably could have put our efforts to better use”
No way, dude — student activism is the training ground for responsible citizenship. So what if it’s over unfair dress codes? A junior high in my town when I was that age staged a sit-in over too-short passing periods. This is young adults learning to say that rules should be rational, should not be arbitrarily applied, and that the governed should have a voice in their governance.
It’s on the right for boys to wear shorts or the right to print the word “fart” in a student newspaper when you’re 15; when you’re 30 you’re out there demanding equal voting access or free press rights in covering government corruption.
I love student activism about school rules, even if they’re relatively “unimportant” rules, and I love administrators who take the students seriously. That’s a far more important civics lesson than they’ll ever learn in a classroom.
When you’re that age, the school IS your world. Its rules are your laws, its people are your community. I love it that kids care enough to worry about the rules, or the curriculum, or the governance of the school. That’s a little baby citizen there we should be pround to give a voter’s card to when they hit 18.
1987 – the “good old days†– hard to imagine, isn’t it? How did we get from pranks and harmless protests to smoking pot in the bathrooms and parking lot, and drinking vodka and orange juice in class? My, how the RHS kids have changed. And not just the kids, but the school administration, too. For a district with a zero tolerance policy for drugs and booze on campus, RHS students seem to be exempt. There really are hidden benefits to living in certain zip codes. How many RHS students have been expelled and attend the alternative program at Greeley?
Once again, Wisconsin Avenue is leaking information. Sources say that certain board members don’t feel they can send RHS kids to Greeley and are exploring an alternative program/site for these students. Wait until the parents of the other three high school students get hold of this. Can’t you hear it now – why is Greeley good enough for our kids but not good enough for the Richwoods kids?
Hold on to your hats – here we go again!
Knight, I’m afraid I missed the other pranks you listed. What year did those happen?
Eyebrows, I suppose that’s one way to look at it. On the other hand, it could’ve just been that they were looking for any excuse to wear shorts and the “injustice” of the miniskirts was convenient.
Now that I think about it, it was probably 1989.