School bans leggings

Should leggings be treated as pants, or are they tights? One California school is jumping into the controversial issue and siding with the "tights" designation. But many students are uncomfortable with the way that the school has singled out female students to address the supposed leggings "problem."

The Kenilworth Junior High in Petaluma, California, has banned leggings unless girls wear something over them, such as shorts, a skirt or a dress.  “Leggings have become popular among girls and many are sheer,” Emily Dunnagan, principal of the school, told ABCNews.com. “When girls bend in leggings the threads spread and that’s really when it becomes a problem.”

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The issue is apparently so pressing that school officials had all of the 900-student school's 450 girls miss class to attend an assembly about leggings. 

 The intent of the all-girls assembly "was to maintain a calm and focused environment for the remainder of the school year," school officials announced in a statement.

But why weren't boys included in the assembly? Many girls felt it was unfair that they were singled out and ordered to dress in a certain way in order to supposedly stop distracting the boys.  "It is not our girls' fault that these boys have quote 'raging hormones' they can't control," a parent of one student told KTVU.

"We didn't think it was fair how we have all these restrictions on our clothing while boys didn't have to sit through it at all," Brittany Kruljack, a student, also told the station.