The upper school’s privilege to wear jeans every Friday is on shaky ground.

At Monday’s assembly, Nov. 10, Spencer Williams, senior class president, announced to the student body that the jeans privilege was hanging in the balance. The “administration has given us one week,” to prove ourselves capable of correctly following the jeans and dress code rules, Williams said.

“Everyone is going to lose the privilege for the rest of the semester if they violate it again. Everyone has until this Friday, Nov. 14, to prove we can follow it,” Williams said.

Jeans are being threatened “because some of the high schoolers have been dressing out of dress code for Fridays, like shoes and jackets only acceptable for spirit days, not just jeans on Friday,” Williams said.

The end of last year was the first time all upper schools students were given the privilege of wearing jeans on Fridays. It had previously been only a senior privilege.

“Last year Student Issues Board (SIB) talked to Mr. Reynolds about jeans, but really it was Montgomery Jones and William Staton. They tried to get spirit days every Friday, but the administration didn’t want that. However, they compromised with jeans on Fridays,” Ella Hall, senior Student Activities Board (SAB) member and last year SIB member said.

“Mr. Reynolds and Mrs. Brogdon decided to change the privilege. We talked about how Stratford spirit had been dwindling since we had to get uniforms and the tattoos were taken away, and we thought this would help.The idea came up in September, but we really started to go over it between February and March,” Hall said.

Mr. Chance Reynolds, Assistant Upper School Principal, said “it was a terrific idea and student driven which is appreciated.”

“When SIB went to great lengths to get this set up last year, there were certain parameters that had to be met with jeans and the dress code. This is a privilege, not a right. We have a dress code for a reason, if we can’t abide by the SIB rules we will just have to abide by the dress code as written in the handbook,” Reynolds said.

The SIB has worked hard to keep the jeans privilege.

“I’m all for giving a second chance, so I reached out to SIB, and Spencer went to great lengths to let everyone know about the second chance, and that’s how I want to handle it,” Reynolds said.

“I talked to Mr. Reynolds about giving one more chance before they start taking things away, and I announced it during assembly to let everyone know that the privilege might be gone,” Williams said.

“Strangely enough, the people abusing the rule the most were seniors,” Reynolds said.

However, students are grateful for the relaxed Friday dress code and the second chance of proving that everyone can follow the rules.

“It’s fun. It gets everyone excited for the weekend and makes Fridays more relaxed. I don’t think jeans Friday should be taken away, at least not for seniors,” Hall said.

“The relaxed dress code helps us to relax a little. Girls don’t have to wear the skirts or skorts and boys don’t have to wear khakis,”  Williams said.

To date, the student body has kept the privilege safe.