By Tori Igoe
As the graduation season approaches, students of Saratoga Springs High School (SSHS) have learned they cannot decorate their graduation caps. Many students believe this rule is unfair. At SSHS we are taught everyone can be themselves, that we should not conform to the majority. Isn’t dressing completely alike going against what the school has taught us?
Mrs. Swift, a math teacher on the graduation committee, said, “First of all, we want to make sure nobody is doing anything inappropriate, and to enforce that can be really difficult especially on the day of graduation.” Mrs. Swift, a Saratoga Springs High School graduate, has considered the matter of uniformity for some time.
“Graduation is considered a celebration of the class. It’s probably one of the very few times the class is actually together. And it’s about celebrating the class as a whole, versus a single person. When people decorate caps, it draws attention to a single person versus the whole group,” Swift said.
Almost a decade ago, someone dressed indecently as they walked across the stage. And students are still suffering the consequences of that person’s actions.
Seniors see the issue in the present. “It’s our property. We should be able to do what we want with it,” said Claire Cuneo, a senior. Another senior pointed out that we all share where we are going on the @toga2022commits Instagram page, in the yearbook and when we all walk the stage to get our diplomas. Senior Camden Hart said, “We know lots of other schools have had issues with people writing inappropriate messages on their caps, and yet they still get to decorate their caps.”
SSHS Principal Tsao’s role is to work with the Graduation Committee, which is run by Mrs. Swift and Mr. Spackmann, both teachers at SSHS. Ms. Tsao does not run the committee or make decisions.
“I could really go either way. I can see both sides. Saratoga is rooted in tradition. I’ve only been here four years but there have been things that have gone on here for fifty years and Saratoga really takes a lot of pride in the traditions that it has cultivated,” she said. When asked what it would take to change the rule, Mrs. Tsao said, “I think the committee would have to agree, come to consensus. Nothing is ever one hundred percent.”
After talking to many students, the consensus was that it should change. Ms. Tsao’s advice: speak at a forum with student council and the graduation committee heads to make the changes you want.
Our last day as Saratoga Springs Blue Streaks all together, and we all have to dress similarly even though none of us, truly, are similar. So, while we all get to share where we are going on social media, we will have to comply to a “dress code” on graduation day.