There was always a rule at Smoky Hill and most schools in the United States. Hoods and hats are not allowed in the building due to safety for the students and staff. “Well, no, I mean the whole admin team talks about all of these things. we have an opportunity to put in our opinions, Sometimes we have people who oppose it and that’s okay. That’s part of feeding is having discourse. And you don’t always have to agree. That’s the beauty of it,” principal Chuck Puga said.

“Students always just thought about breaking the rules by wearing their hoods, but now that it’s allowed they changed their minds all the sudden,” Puga said. Some kids wore it because they feel more comfortable some others just wanted to break the rules.

Some may ask why to change your minds all of a sudden because most assumed the whole hoods and hats situation has always been strongly forbidden. “I mean, if I go to you and I say, Hey, let me see your ID because I don’t recognize you and you’re wearing a hood and you don’t have an ID and you have a mask on  I won’t be able to know who you are,” Puga said. So for the most part it has been a safety issue.

 “Seems like it’s okay to me but I also don’t deal with the security side of school so that’s up to them to decide,” English teacher Justin Tretten said. The biggest concern was the safety of the school.

Since security is mostly in charge of the safety of the school, talking with security can give us better insight. Kids were feeling like the school is invading their comfort zone. “I actually like it because I feel like we were making you guys do a lot of things, but now you kinda get a break from that,” security officer Alejandra Quezada Meraz said. “Now students can be creative with what they want to wear. It can be a really cool hat or something they’ve always wanted to wear to school,” Meraz said.

Finally, I decided to talk to a student named Oliver Hanover (9). “I like it because its a way for students to express themselves more,” Hanover said.