Here's a chant guaranteed to dampen the next pep rally: The new miniskirts for San Jose's Piedmont Hills High cheerleading squad are too R-I-S-Q-U-E!

Intent on cracking down on miniskirts, the high school's principal has decided the cheer squad's new uniforms also have no place in school.

Instead, said Principal Traci Williams, the cheerleaders must cover up with sweats to wear their uniforms during school.

"This is really unfair to us," said Piedmont High senior, Antonia Bavilacqua, 17, who is leading the vocal charge to change the principal's mind. The skirts are still OK for games, just not during school. "We're just sad and hurt. It's our school colors and spirit. And they're making us feel like outcasts."

The dress code at the East Side Union High School District campus isn't new -- and requiring that skirts or shorts stretch lower than mid-thigh is pretty universal school code around the country. What's new this year at Piedmont Hills is that the cheer skirts got shorter -- and it happened just as administrators began conducting "dress-code sweeps," yanking inappropriately dressed students out of class and into a special building until parents can be summoned with a change of clothes.

"Pockets are hanging out," Williams said of the offending skirts found during the sweeps. "Cheeks are hanging out. We don't want them bending over."

"Do you have a teenager?" added Vice Principal Jenner Perez. "Well, if you don't, then you haven't seen how short these skirts are."



Yes, said senior Izak Joubert, the enforcement of the rules is "extremely stricter" this year, but there are some teenage girls who "look kind of ridiculous wearing their underpants to school."

But what does that have to do with a tailored, custom-made uniform that cost school cheerleaders $300? It's not clear who decided to raise the cheerleaders' hemlines. But the squad is aghast at the school's solution: Wearing sweatpants under a miniskirt is just "dorky," said senior squad member Sierra Burt.

Added one fellow cheerleader: "It's 95 degrees outside."

At one school in a place where it's really hot, Florida, cheerleaders were exempted from the no-miniskirt rule. And at neighboring San Jose Unified schools, cheerleaders can wear their skirts to school -- as long as they wear bike shorts or the like underneath.

Williams said she is all for school spirit. But when her Piedmont Hills Pirates beat the Evergreen Valley Cougars on Friday night, she couldn't help but check out their cheerleaders' skirts.

"And their skirts were mid-thigh," Williams said. "If our cheerleader's skirts were that long, this wouldn't be an issue."

Contact Lisa Fernandez at 408-920-5002.