Okay, maybe death is an exaggeration, but I believe that hats should be allowed in our school. For one, do you really think there are that many gangs in Johnston, Iowa that have hats specific to their gang? Of course there aren’t. But it’s more than that.

Lately, administration has not shown that they trust us students, causing us to react harshly when they try to implement new rules (cough cough lanyards). It was pointed out in the editorial of the Nov. issue of our paper, and I’m going to point it out now. We don’t have as much freedom as administration wants us to believe we have and as students who feel “oppressed”, we decided to overreact and lash out during the Great Homecoming Vandalism of 2014. If administration would allow us to wear hats as a sign of trust, we would be happier students who wouldn’t complain about every rule we have to follow.

We could even expand this to a reward. If we wear a lanyard, we can wear a hat. No lanyard? No hat. This way we could kill two birds with one stone and have more control of the whole lanyard issue and also improve morale around the building.

Let’s face it. It’s cold outside. I am going to wear a hat because I don’t want my head to get frostbite on the way from my car to the school. But as soon as I step in the commons doors, I am immediately scolded for wearing a hat. However, as a person with short hair, I will have to dunk my head in a bucket of water and fix it in the mirror for about 20 minutes just to get rid of the hat hair. It would be much easier if I could just wear my hat the whole day and not worry about taking a second shower once I enter the building.

Plus, half of our classrooms are freezing anyways and I’d be much happier throughout the whole day being allowed to wear a hat. Looking at this psychologically, we would focus better on our work if we were more content with our surroundings. We’d stop fussing about how cold it is or how our hair looks and actually do our work.

Our school has a high enough performance record to allow us some liberties. I’m all for the lanyard/hat policy if I can wear my beanie in government. We could sensor the hats just like normal clothes and keep the whole “no masks” policy in place, just give us some freedoms here. We would really appreciate it.