A ninth grader sloshes through a puddle on her way to Health class, thinking longingly of the cozy rain boots in her closet as she feels the water seep into her socks. “Didn’t you get the e-mail?” one of her friends laughs, prancing away in her silly rubber footwear.

Currently, rain boots are not in uniform. Any exception comes on a day-to-day basis: a grade level dean will email the entire student body the night before or the morning of a particularly rainy day to officially allow the footwear.  However, a number of students disagree with the School’s uniform policy that forbids girls to wear rain boots unless the Administration has granted explicit permission.

10th Grade Level Dean and History and Social Sciences instructor Tom Millar said that the reason this exception exists is to stop students from trying to wear rain boots when it is not raining as a fashion statement.

“The uniform has to be a uniform. The more you start to expand the menu of choices, it starts to become a wardrobe rather than a uniform,” he explained.

Catherine ’16 disagreed, saying that students should be trusted to make the practical choice based on the weather.

“I think [the rule should be that] if it’s raining, then you can wear rain boots; if it’s not, then you can’t, instead of being warned like three hours ahead of time that you can wear rain boots to School,” she suggested.

Other students, such as Aelish ’15, agreed that the current system of informing students nightly via e-mail is not working.

“I think it’s too last minute because unless you check your email the morning of or really late the night before, you’re not going to know [if rain boots are allowed]. Some people just [wear boots] anyway,” she said.