AMID the fresh round of fiery debate over schools’ enforcement of a dress code for students, Calabar High School Principal Sian Mahay Wilson is insisting that the policy instils healthy psychological values and upholds equity within the school environment.

“Dress codes form the image of any organisation — it forms an identity for the institution. There’s also a psychological connection to it; all children that come to school are the same, it’s a place of standardising how people look, feel, and think about themselves. All of us who come here are the same, it doesn’t matter where we come from,” Mahay Wilson argued in an interview with the Jamaica Observer last week after the commissioning of an $8-million concrete road and flood mitigation project by Carib Cement Company at the school on Red Hills Road in St Andrew.

The principal also said that a dress code adds to the identity of an institution and plays an integral role in building a young student’s character and holistic development. Additionally, she noted that it could help them to develop a positive mental image of themselves which, she said, heightens self-esteem and confidence.

On September 8, 2025, the start of the new school year, Calabar refused entry to at least 34 students. At the time, when the Observer asked the principal why the students were not allowed onto the campus she said, “They are not ready for school.”

She then directed the Observer to ask the boys standing at the gate why they were there.

The boys, some of whom said they had been waiting at the gate before 8:00 am, gave various reasons why they had not been admitted to the campus. The reasons included black hair dye, incorrect belt buckles, missing buttons from their khakis, tight pants, and incorrect hair lengths.

Throughout the day news emerged that students at other schools across the island were denied entry due to dress code breaches, triggering another round of furious debate with passionate arguments both for and against the measure.

Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon waded into the dispute, voicing support for schools upholding policies in the interest of discipline, but maintained that students must not be denied entry to their place of learning.

“On the matter of discipline, we’re talking about it a lot in Jamaica. We have to stand with our schools and our principals on this matter of discipline…Of course, that does not mean that there are not rules around the way in which we administer discipline. That’s very important. Our children also need to be valued and our children need to be kept safe,” Morris Dixon said at Shortwood Teachers’ College’s 140th anniversary media launch on September 10.

However, last week Mahay Wilson rejected claims that students were locked out from Calabar. She said that parents were contacted and students were instructed to go home and return when they were properly attired. She explained that some students followed the directive but others decided to stand outside the school gate.

“Boys were asked to go and make some corrections [to their uniforms], parents were called, and a lot of parents came, took their boys, made the corrections, and brought them back to school. There were a few, however, like in any institution, who are disobedient and adamant that they are going to do what they want to do and so those boys refused, even after we spoke to their parents. So no child was locked out of school — we don’t lock students out of school,” Mahay Wilson insisted.

“A uniform also tells you about the institution itself, so it’s not just about the school, it can be corporate Jamaica who has uniforms, it can be any institution where there is an expectation to wear uniforms,” Mahay Wilson said.

Insisting that Calabar must always be projected in the best light, the principal said: “The image and the branding of any institution is represented in how people look and how they are perceived when they are seen out there in the public space — and I want to say something in particular to that — when the public sees children on the street, they don’t see parents, they see the institution. Now that is important because if you are going to judge the institution by the boys you see on the street, while knowing that they are coming from homes looking like that, then we’re going to have to take care in what we do to make sure they are conforming to school rules.”

Mahay Wilson said that since the September 8 incident issues surrounding the students and their attire have significantly lessened, noting that the school has now reduced policing of the dress code.

“Those are teething pains at the start of school year, but you have to show children that you are serious, you have to be consistent. They have started to conform and so, there has been less of that policing. It continues more at the form teacher or on the class level,” she said.

Mahay Wilson maintained that the rules of the school were not implemented in the interest of restricting expression but to prepare students for the world outside of school, where rules exist and must be adhered to.

“It is about respecting standards and rules, because when they leave Calabar, or any school for that matter, we have prepared them for contribution to nation-building and a part of that is discipline and respecting standards — respecting status quo,” she said.

MAHAY WILSON…a dress code plays an integral role in building a young student’s character and holistic development