This outfit won't be OK at ETHS Monday. Read the story to learn why. (Studio Romantic/Shutterstock.com)

If Evanston Township High School students want to dress up for Halloween on Monday, they’ll have to follow some pretty strict guidelines for wearing their costumes to school.

In a reminder posted on the district’s website, school officials say that no costume masks or full face paint are allowed.

“We need to be able to see your face and identify you,” the message states.

The school also bans “props or costumes that are meant to simulate a weapon or promote acts of violence, including reference to serial killers.”

Also, there cannot be any costumes which represent drugs or alcohol, nor any which “harrass, intimidate or bully another student group or students based on a particular ethnicity, race, religion or gender.”

In addition, costumes which “disrupt the educational environment” are also prohibited.

Many of these daily dress code rules are in the student handbook called “The Pilot,” and are simply being re-emphasized for Halloween.

However, in light of the costume-and-candy-based day on Monday, ETHS says they are trying to support “social responsibility as we consider the trauma many students have been through, as well as the experiences of cultural appropriation that can occur with costumes.”

Any student with inappropriate costumes will be asked to change into alternative clothing if they had brought it with them, or their parents will be called and asked to bring in something that meets the dress code.

Jeff Hirsh joined the Evanston Now reporting team in 2020 after a 40-year award-winning career as a broadcast journalist in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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1 Comment

  1. I’m really glad I was a kid in the 80s when Halloween was enjoyed for the outrageous event that it was always meant to be me. We are teaching our youth to be anxious and embrace the victimhood syndrome. No one should be overtly offensive in school at any time – but this over the top political sheepishness is not serving our youth. Teach respect, accountability, how to be be wrong and recover from it and how to work hard. Stop bending the knee to every single woke agenda.

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