By Ramsey Delano, managing editor

As administrators crack down on short shorts and spaghetti straps, they also decided late last month to enforce the dress code for Cal High’s song and cheerleading teams, no longer allowing them to wear their skirts during school hours.

After recent complaints from three students and their parents, administrators told cheer and songleaders last Tuesday that they could only wear their uniforms to school on game days if they had pants underneath their short skirts, assistant principal Duff Danilovich said.

The current uniform consists of a skirt and a jumper with a long sleeve shirt underneath.   The girls will still be able to wear their regular uniforms during games.

Administrators believe the skirts violate the aspect of the dress code that states “skirts and shorts must measure five inches from the middle of the kneecap in length.”

“We want to be consistent with the code,” said Danilovich. “They can wear their uniforms but they have to stay within the code.”

While wearing pants underneath uniforms in winter is no problem, the current temperature makes the new regulations impractical, said senior cheerleader Allie Bergman, echoing the sentiment of most girls on both squads.

“It’s ridiculous,” sophomore song girl Jennifer Iversen said.

“It is our way of showing spirit.”

After administrators received several complaints and phone calls from parents, they addressed the situation in a meeting and decided to enforce the rule last week.

“During academics we are focused on school studies,” Danivolich said. “We don’t want our minds to be focused on other things.”

The girls hope  the ban on their uniforms won’t last, but they are not getting their hopes up, said freshmen cheerleader Sona Rawat.

Many of the girls are upset and plan on taking the matter to administrators.

“It has always been a tradition for cheer to wear our uniforms,” Sona said.

Parents also plan on taking action and confronting the administration since they paid $200 for the uniforms and they expect their daughters to be allowed to wear them every year since the school opened nearly 40 years ago, said Allie.

But cheer and song coaches don’t plan on taking any action to convince administration to change the new rule.

“All the girls want to but the coaches don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Sona said.

Several members of the cheerleading squad don’t believe their uniforms violate the dress code because they are pinky length and cover appropriate amounts of their bodies.

“My skirt goes down to mid thigh,” said junior songleader Sierra Coulson.

In addition to the skirt, the song team wears tights and shorts underneath for extra coverage.

Though the new rule will prevent the girls from wearing their uniforms, members of the song team plans on wearing jeans with their tank tops and bows on game days.

Sharanth Kumarasivan, Tate DeLano, Ritika Iyer, Alex Archuleta and Amelia Arvesen also contributed to this story.