School Rules:
Students Shoulder More Responsibility
By Lauren Fox '98

Trust, responsibility, and kindness: the three dictums that lead off Germantown Academy's mission statement and supposedly guide the school community in their everyday actions. The major changes in this year's school policy reflect the administrations desire to move the community closer to these moral goals and to counteract the lack in ethical standards. "While the students have achieved a high level of self responsibility in the past few years, we must move toward greater group responsibility before any large changes are made, such as an honor code," said Head of Upper School Tony Garvan. If these changes are successful, the school will carefully consider introducing an honor code. While the school wants to take the step, it believes that the desire has to come from the students. Mr. Garvan said, "the school will go as fast as the students can handle it."

Dress Code: Enforcement
While last year's hard fought dress code primarily remains intact, save one small alteration, enforcement of the dress code receives a much needed boost. The administration wanted the enforcement of the dress code to remain in the students' hands, but under the old system, "in spirit students were trying, but they didn't have the mechanism," said Mr. Garvan. The new solution has been named the Mr. Garvan- Mr. Haynie dress code rule and is as follows: Each advisory rotates a student who is in charge of reporting dress code offenders in their advisory. If the reporter fails to turn the violator in, and a teacher does so instead, both the reporter and the violator must dress in khakis and a plain white, collored shirt for one entire week. If the reporter does turn the student in, then only the violator must "dress like Mr. Garvan" for a week.

With this new enforcement, students and faculty will be able to see the results (khakis and whites roaming the halls) and they will know that the line is being drawn. Speaking of lines being drawn, the one change to the dress code is that tanks tops are not allowed, unless they are under another shirt or a dress. Before you decide to wear one on a hot day, think of the new consequences.

Monitoring for Community Leaders
Another new responsibility being handed to students in SFAC or Form Council is monitoring various parts of the school, such as the new student center. The school feels that student government participants hav some responsibility in running the school, so they should begin to take responsibility for the school and other students. Hopefully, this will make their membership carry more meaning and maybe even deter the members who attend "just for points."

New Extra Time Policy
The GA administration is taking a hard-lined approach to the never ending need for more time on tests, quizzes, etc. Mr. Garvan felt that, "no matter how careful the teachers were in granting extra time, it always resulted in inequality among students. It ended up with a situation where students had to take longer." Although students diagnosed with a need for more time will be granted it, everyone else will have to make do with the time up to the bell, unless all sections in a course agree that more time is necessary. The good side of this, one might ask? Well, now teachers have to make tests shorter. "A test is not a mini- exam," said Mr. Garvan. Words to live by.

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