A Florida teenager was forced to wear a "shame suit" as punishment for wearing a short skirt to school, her mother claims.
Miranda Larkin, 15, arrived at Clay County's Oakleaf High School wearing a black skirt that was nearly four inches above her knees, KREM-TV reported Thursday. A teacher called her out and sent her to the school nurse, Larkin said.
Next thing Larkin knew, she was told to put on a neon yellow T-shirt and bright red sweat pants. Both had the words "DRESS CODE VIOLATION' written all over.
"She put on the outfit in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror and just broke down," Dianna Larkin, Miranda's mother, told the station. "She started sobbing and broke out in hives."
According to the Clay County School District dress code, violators are allowed to have someone drop off other clothing, change into the yellow shirt and red pants, or remain in their original clothing and go to in-school suspension, a district representative told the station.
But Miranda, who had just moved from Seattle, didn't know the dress code when she showed up in the black skirt on the third day of school. She said she wasn't given the option of having someone give her another outfit.
Dianna said she's filing a complaint against the school with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for putting her daughter's punishment on public display.
"I feel that by putting a kid in an outfit that says what they did wrong across their chest and down their leg is taking their private records and making them public and that's a clear violation of their privacy rights," Dianna told KREM-TV.
A lawyer for the school board said the nature of the punishment was discussed with other school districts and they concluded there was no violation, according to the station.
"(The outfit) is not displaying a discipline record to the public," the attorney said in a statement. "If we took off the words the other students would still know that the prison orange T-shirts were for dress code violations. I think that the practice is OK."
County school district officials said they have the "dress code violation" outfit to make sure students can quickly return to class.
