Beyond code inequities, everyday issues like family stress and active-shooter lockdowns complicate the lives of these appealing characters. Diverse secondary characters include several with disabilities. Molly, a refreshingly average student gifted with empathy, has a brother who deals vaping paraphernalia, stressing her white middle-class family financially and emotionally. When district administrators ignore their petition to end dress coding, students strategize next steps. While Molly’s pre-pubertal figure is ridiculed by an obnoxious classmate (Megan, with cerebral palsy, knows how that feels), her violations of the dress code are ignored, but girls with curvier bodies are repeatedly sanctioned.

Talia’s hair (she’s Trinidadian) triggers the dress code. Then, as Molly’s podcast followers mount, others post photos of dress-code shaming on Instagram, revealing the harm caused by policing girls’ appearances while ignoring social, cultural, and economic realities that govern their lives and clothing choices. Going public at first worsens her mortification both girls are targeted by bullies. That changes after Molly persuades Olivia to tell the embarrassing story on her new podcast. Students are furious when the class campout is canceled because fellow student Olivia contravened the dress code. A spirited eighth grader and her friends leverage the power of social networking to fight their school’s oppressive dress code.

Dress coded carrie firestone