by Dennis Harter, MS Principal
dennish@isb.ac.th
This week we have been speaking to students about the ISB school uniform to help provide clarity and to allow students to attend school comfortably while in uniform. It is neither the desire of middle school faculty nor students and parents to spend a lot of time on this topic … we’d all much rather be spending our time on learning and care for students.
Ultimately our goal is to create a comfortable, learning focused environment at which clothing does not cause competition or social pressure among students. Of course, the difficulty is that every person is a different size and shape, yet the word uniform implies “the same.” With this in mind, we try to apply some guidelines that allow students to come to school in keeping with the uniform, while remaining comfortable.
Middle school students must be in ISB school uniform shirts every school day for all classes except PE (which has a separate uniform) and/or dance. Here are some other uniform requirements in the middle school:
- MS students may wear either the white or green school uniform shirt on any school day
- On every Friday, MS has Panther Spirit day and students may wear ISB Panther merchandise and gear, ensuring appropriate dress is still followed
- Sweatshirts and hoodies must be ISB affiliated and available to all students to purchase – these are typically sold at the Booster Hut
- Items sold at the ISB bookstore are acceptable uniform wear (i.e. shorts, skirts, skorts, pants)
- PE Shorts may only be worn for PE, not regular classes
- If “bottoms” (i.e. shorts, skirts, skorts, pants) are purchased from outside ISB, they must be plain black or khaki, not show any images or logos, and may not be denim. Other guidelines regarding dress code are below.
- Tighter style long pants are allowed, however, these must have a stitched outer seam and pockets. Lycra and spandex leggings are not allowed. When tighter long pants are worn they can be full leg, or finish mid-calf. Movement should not be restrictive.
- Fabric must be of the same color tones that the official school pants/shorts (Black or khaki).
- Underwear must not be visible.
We hope that this is helpful for students to be comfortable and meet our uniform needs. Our goal is that a uniform allows students to focus on things OTHER than dress choices, so that we can be a healthy learning community.