Some rules make more sense on paper than they do in practice, especially when they don’t consider the reality of freezing winters.

So, what would you do if your school insisted on outdated dress codes that forced you to endure icy temperatures?

Would you put up with it?

Or would you use their own rules against them?

In the following story, a group of determined students found a clever loophole that ultimately changed the rules for good.

Here’s how it all played out.

The right to not freeze

Back in the dark ages, my town’s public schools required females to always wear a dress or a skirt and blouse, even in the snowy New England winters.

I froze my tush, walking 1/3 mile to the bus stop and standing there waiting!

Boys were supposed to wear dress pants and collared shirts.

In high school, Student Lockers were in the school corridor, and the rules said we needed to remove coats, boots, and other outdoor/winter gear there before entering the other rooms.

So, I and some other female students hatched a plan.

When it got cold, we wore pants to school under our skirts and removed them while standing or sitting in the public corridor.

They used the school’s handbook to get around the rule.

Teachers and the principal got upset, but warm pants (corduroy, lined, wool, etc., were specifically listed in the manual – they were, of course, thinking of the boys!) qualified as weather gear.

When they asked me to go to a bathroom to change, I pointed to the student rulebook, which said weather gear had to be removed before entering the other rooms.

More and more girls copied us, and they hated girls maybe accidentally flashing underwear while changing (it could even accidentally happen pulling down pants worn over skirts, and pants crushed the required, neat appearance of the skirts), so we won the battle – pants instead of skirts were allowed all day in winter.

We then stretched it to rainy days in spring (half the days, in MA), and finally, they gave up.

We could choose to wear pants any day, which soon devolved into jeans and such for everyone.

Clever girls.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit responded to this story.

All it took was one mother to change this dress code.

The joke was on him.

The boys must’ve thought they were hilarious!

Wonder what Sister Patricia said about this one.

Good on them for standing up to silly rules.

This just goes to show that sometimes, you have to bend the system to make it better!

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.