PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — As temperatures are spiking, so are tensions at the Creative and Performing Arts High School in South Philadelphia about what students should be wearing to class.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, as temperatures neared 90 degrees, several female students were pulled aside for dress code violations.<\/p>\n
Some students arrived dressed in protest of the rules, and videos of the encounters circulated widely online.<\/p>\n
“On social media, there was a large outburst about the situation,” senior Rabiyyah Watsons said.<\/p>\n
Senior Makayla Hicks said she witnessed inconsistent enforcement. “It was a lot of men that came with cheerleading outfits on who they let just walk through, but they were ‘dress coding’ girls,” she said.<\/p>\n
Watsons said she did not face any issues with her own outfit.<\/p>\n
“I did not have any trouble today or yesterday, actually. I was wearing a cropped shirt and basketball shorts,” she said.<\/p>\n
The Philadelphia School District said CAPA has always had a dress code, and families were notified Wednesday that the rules would be enforced during the warm weather.<\/p>\n
Hicks said she hopes the school will clarify expectations.<\/p>\n
“I really hope CAPA gets a strict schedule and gets a strict handbook and sticks to what we came here for and not switch things up at the end of the school year,” she said.<\/p>\n
District officials said the female students who were stopped were not disciplined. Principal Alonzo Fulton is holding town halls with each grade to address concerns.<\/p>\n
Some students believe the reaction has gone too far.<\/p>\n
“I feel as though students are taking it a bit out of control and being disrespectful to teachers,” senior Laila Moore said.<\/p>\n
The district said it is reviewing and reiterating the dress code rules with students and parents.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — As temperatures are spiking, so are tensions at the Creative and Performing Arts High School…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[76129,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-169009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-76129","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}