An email sent out by Upper School Director Mrs. Reed after winter break broke the news that students are now permitted to wear sweatpants for the remainder of the cold months.

Because of the highly contagious Omicron variant, Baldwin requires that windows and fans remain open to increase air flow. This makes classrooms especially cold in the winter. Mrs. Reed acknowledged this in her email, and wrote, “With our priority being keeping windows at least somewhat open and fans on to maintain ventilation, Madame Seliverstoff and I have been monitoring the temperature in the various classrooms and agree that it can get cold.”

The new policy is designed to help students keep warm while learning. Mrs. Reed said, “When you’re cold, it’s hard to learn. I wanted to develop something that would allow for warmth during class.”

Madame Seliverstoff said, “School uniforms have everything we need for cold weather. We have a uniform to unify students, and wearing sweatpants is not proper. But this year is different.”

With many students opting to trade out their leggings for sweatpants, it seems that this dress-code adjustment is popular. 

Anya Berlanska ‘25 said, “I never really cared for sweatpants, but it does get cold so I think that it’s nice that we can wear them. I’ve always worn leggings and I think that they tend to look better, but I think allowing sweatpants to a certain extent would be good for a lot of students.”

When asked if she would rather have less strict legging guidelines or be allowed to wear sweatpants, Sam Manogue ‘22 said, “I feel like splitting [uniform guidelines] halfway would be the best of both worlds…When it’s cold we can still look put together in leggings, but allowing sweatpants during winter could reduce students wearing them out of uniform.”

Ms. Reed said, “Sweatpants year-round is not going to happen. March 1 is the definite end date.” Administration will be monitoring temperatures to see if the rule needs to be extended.

As the weather remains cold, feel free to bundle up in your sweatpants– just make sure that they are gray or navy blue!