When School Policy Becomes “Tznius”

“We need to completely detach school uniform rules from tznius,” writes Chani Vogel of Crown Heights, arguing that girls need more positive education and less mixed messaging.

By Chani Vogel

I read the recent article about tznius with interest. While I agree with some of what the author wrote, I have a different take on the subject.

I’ve asked many of our Crown Heights girls informally if they ever learned about tznius as a subject. Do they know the halachos? Not one girl told me that her school taught the halachos of tznius. That got me thinking. Why do the girls resent the word so much if they don’t even teach it in school? As someone who talks to many teenage girls, this sentiment completely flummoxed me!

I started asking more and more girls. My conclusion is very sad. But I’m not just here to complain — I’m here with some solutions! Before I get the outrage from some readers that chinuch begins at home, I want to say that I too believe that Chinuch begins at home. But lets talk reality. It is not so simple, and we need to do something about it. When parents try at home, but the cool girls in school are doing everything to undermine said parents, I think we need to go back to the schools as the drawing board for this topic.

Schools need to start talking about being a Bas Melech and a princess when the girls are 3 and 4 years old. Talk about dignity and pride in being a frum Yid and about being Hashem’s princess. Starting from the beginning of the child’s chinuch journey, and reinforcing it consistently with positivity throughout the entire 12 years of school would be a good place to start. It is not enough to have a year or two here and there dealing with the tznius curriculum.

Schools need to stop making rules that have nothing to do with tznius and then calling them tznius anyway. When you tell a girl that her socks have to be plain black because her tights are black, and that an insignia on the socks isn’t acceptable, it needs to be made very clear that this is a school rule, not halacha. When you tell a girl she can’t wear light pink nail polish to school, it should be separated from tznius and put in the general category of school uniform rules.

When schools do selective enforcement — punishing one girl for a tiny logo on her sock while turning a blind eye to another girl whose socks have the brand name emblazoned on them — it becomes extremely disillusioning to the girls who witness it. Or when only one class has a teacher who cares enough about enforcing the rules in her class, and the rest of the grade goes unchecked, it can be very frustrating to the students.

The well known fact that the seforim bring down how many brochos a person gets for keeping these halachos should be a fundamental to how tznius is presented to our girls. Instilling a love for Hashem’s mitzvos always works better than telling the girls how they are getting punished for opening their tznius button.

We need to completely detach school uniform rules from tznius. Then we need to start working on building up our girls as the princesses of Hashem and the Rebbe, so they feel good about themselves.

The Rebbe said that we should look at Bais Yaakov to see how we should dress. I was taking a Maagalim class, when I first heard this. I was so taken aback, and even (if I care to admit it) highly insulted. But we know that the Rebbe is right, even when the truth stings. These girls in the good Bais Yaakov schools are brought up with the concept that they are princesses. They are taught to take pride in how they look and how they act. From the youngest age, they are taught that they are “better than that.” Therefore they won’t run screaming through the streets — they’re too dignified for that. They won’t compromise their tznius, because they see themselves as better than that.

I once bumped into a friend in Amazing Savings. Her kids were dressed to the nines. Each daughter was dressed more gorgeous than the next. I thought they were dressed a bit too fine for a regular Sunday shopping excursion. When I mentioned it to my friend, she told me that while she does not have lots of money to waste, gorgeous trending clothing that are tznius are a priority for her, so that her girls will want to dress that way.

That is the approach we need to adopt in our community: lots of positivity, and real reasons to be “too good” to be “better than” rather then to dress like a street woman. We need to make Yiddishkeit cool, and work with what Chasidishkeit is based on — Ahavas Hashem that leads to Yiras Hashem. If we can show our girls the “cool” side of being tznius and frum, then we have a chance.

I want to cry when I see our girls walking on Kingston with all 3 of their buttons on the uniform shirt open, and the skirt hiked up to make sure nothing has been left to the imagination. It almost feels normal to see elbows and knees in the hotter months.

When I begin to think about why this is happening, I see the hypocrisy in the girl’s face. It begins when she is given rules that are fair and should be enforced. The school enforces it for her, but not for some of the other girls in her grade. She feels picked on and thinks that the rules are baloney. If they are real, then shouldn’t all her grademates need to follow them?

Another important factor is that, a lot of the tznius issues are second generation. The hypocrisy started, and the girl rebelled. She got married and dresses her kids in the way she wants. The kids don’t even know the halachos — they just wear the cute shirts with the cap sleeves. They come to school and are told they are not tznius, but never learned what tznius is, just that it is a negative thing you get punished for!

Psychologists have said that children equate Hashem and religion with their superiors, be it parents or teachers. When said superior messes with them by being unfair or doing selective reinforcement, the child begins to think that Hashem is also unfair and does selective reinforcement. That is where the disregard for any halacha largely comes in. When a girl comes to school and she is cool for her open buttons and her iced coffee, other girls also want to be that kind of cool. This girl with her iced coffee (and iPhone 17 Pro Max) is untouchable by the teachers because of a million reasons. (It can be anything from teachers not being willing to discipline on tznius, to teachers being afraid to start with her because her father is on the board or some powerful force, or the fact that her mother has a big mouth and is scary to deal with.) When a child sees hypocrisy, what could have been an incredible teaching moment is devastated and destroyed. Chinuch is not for the faint of heart!

What about the rules for mothers coming to school? There was a school event scheduled when my niece was little. It was my oldest niece in Crown Heights, and I was excited to go to it. The mothers, aunts, and grandmothers were invited, and there was a line on the invitation (it is pathetic that schools even need to put that line in) about mothers not dressed to our school standards would not being welcomed. Of course there were those who came into school in short skirts, no tights, hair exposed, and no one breathed a word to them. I showed the principal her invite. I pointed out that line about tznius and asked her why she was not enforcing it. She actually asked me if I expected her to get into a fight with the parents! If you are not enforcing something like this, then why are you writing it?

Before anyone starts pointing fingers in any directions, I want to admit something. We all have our struggles, and my tznius is something that is a work in progress too. But as a human being, I know that I am much more inclined to working and improving my struggles in a positive way, rather than in a negative way. Our children deserve the same courtesy. We need to find the positive manners in which to instill these values in our girls.

I refuse to believe that this is only a single girls’ schools issue. When you take a random group of our girls at the age of 29 or 30 and line them up, you cannot tell who went to which school. The schools that are super exclusive and the schools that accept everyone have the same rates of tznius observance 10 years out of high school. Sadly this is something our whole community is messing up on. It doesn’t matter how selective the school is or how inclusive — ten years down the line there is no difference in the frumkeit of the girl who graduated our mosdos. It is never too late to change our mindset, and work on making things right. Together we can all do it.

LETS MAKE TZNIUS COOL AGAIN!

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