By Marielys Berdejo, Staff Reporter
As the 2023-2024 school year starts, new policies regarding restroom privileges, phone usage, and dress code are being enforced at Kipp Austin Collegiate that tremendously affected students.
Restroom privileges :
Why can you only go twice and how has this impacted students academically?
Students were surprised to hear that their restroom privileges were being stripped away. In past years only freshmen were limited to the amount of times they could go to the restroom but this year all students are limited to two times per day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. 11th-Grade Chair Brittani Love explained the reason this policy was created and the importance behind it: “It is to try to prevent people from being in the hallway too much. It’s preventing safety issues. There were a lot of fights last year if you remember, and it’s because people could go out and be out in the hallway as much as they wanted to.”
Adding on I asked how this has made an academic impact on students and she had this to say “Personally, if a student has an emergency and they’ve already used to restroom passes, like, especially if I trust that student, I’m always going to let them go another time they need to. So I think it’s up to the teacher’s discretion. Where the wiggle room is in this policy, but academically I think keeping kids in the classroom as much as possible is always for the better.”
Phone usage:
Why was this policy enforced and what was the outcome?
This year students walked into their homerooms and were greeted with a new cell phone police. This policy states that students can’t use their cell phones at any point throughout the class or in transition even if it’s for academic use, only during lunch.
When asked about the reasoning behind this policy, Love replied, “The real answer is when KIPP Texas leadership toward schools around our state, they determined that our school was the worst in terms of phone usage inside of class, during class and in the hallways. So out of all of the high schools in Texas, we were the worst. “So and we saw a huge decline in grades last year. So those two issues kind of go together, right? If kids are constantly on their phones and disengaged from class and learning when they go to do something like a test or quiz, they’re not gonna have any idea. Like it’s one thing for your mind to wander, but if you’re watching a video, you’re clearly not going to be paying attention. ”Adding more into that i asked what has been the outcome of this policy in which she responded “ Oh, I think it’s been so much better this year. Like phone usage is way, way way. now, grades are higher. I know that students aren’t as happy, but I think in the long run, you know, you guys are young adults, but you still need some guidance, some some rules to keep you on the right path.”
Dress Code:
How does this affect students and is the dress code fair”
Students were shocked to hear the stricter dress code this year and privileges that were taken away from them. The dress code differs from last year because students could wear fingertip length shorts and ripped jeans as long as there were no rips above the knee. This year students were hit with a stricter dress code that shorts can only be 3 inches above the knee and no ripped jeans, only frayed jeans that show no skin at all. “This dress code affects me because it targets my body, shorts that are 3 inches above the knee and frayed jeans are all clothing advertised for men” says 11th grader Daisy Perez Nieto. Adding more to what Daisy said, i asked if she thinks the dress code is gender neutral in which she responds, “This dress code targets womens bodies and does not allow us to express ourselves and yet again year after year, objectifies our bodies and gives men more privileges”
Love had this to say to our students in order to encourage and help students keep pushing in school, “You’re all awesome and like even if you are getting in trouble here at school, it’s not anything crazy. You know, like, our kids are good. We have a great school. We have great people here”.
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