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What mom and daughter settled on where two pairs of jean shorts, plain old jean shorts, that cost about $30 total and appeared to be about as tame as jean shorts were 20 years ago, and 20 years before that. Makayla, a good student, with a solid group of friends at Truro Junior High, headed off to school Friday morning in her new shorts, on a bright and sunny day. A day, her mom alleges, where female students wearing shorts that were above the knee were summoned to vice principal Shelley MacLean’s office for closer inspection.

“Makayla has never been down to the office before, not for anything,” Ms. Roberts-Davison says.

“She called me on her morning break Friday to tell me she had got in trouble for her shorts. I thought it must have been a misunderstanding. So I phoned the school and then I went to the school and asked to meet with the vice principal. I just wanted an explanation. I just wanted her to show me where it said that it was not okay for Makayla to wear these shorts. But there was nothing anywhere that said that. And the best part of all was that [vice principal MacLean] said Makayla’s shorts were a “distraction to the male population of the school.”

“A woman said that to me, and as we are sitting at her desk, she is wearing a low-cut, V-neck top. So I said to her, ‘Your chest is exposed, is that OK?’ She didn’t really know what to say to that.”

The vice principal isn’t saying anything now, referring all questions to the Chignecto-Central regional school board — who told me that it would be a violation of “privacy” to discuss the specifics of the case.