Dress codes a challenge for schools


More back to school news

On Tuesday, read the Dayton Daily News to learn about local teachers’ concerns and goals for the coming school year. In the coming days we’ll also report on school safety, education technology and state testing.

Back to school means new clothes for many kids and dress code questions for many principals, as students push the boundaries on length of shorts and depth of politics.

Centerville High School coordinating principal Jon Wesney said when temperatures flirt with the 90s, the biggest dress code problem is clothes that are too revealing.

“Probably the biggest battle our principals deal with is kids wearing shorts that are too short or shirts that are cut off or show their midriff,” Wesney said. “It’s typically an issue the first week or so, and we deal with it, then it pops up again in the spring.”

Dayton’s Dunbar High School requires uniforms, and shorts or skirts must be knee-length or longer. At Kettering’s Fairmont High School, they must extend at least to “fingertip-length” when a student is standing with arms at their sides.

While many students enjoy the freedom to choose their own school gear, other kids and parents wish they had the simplicity of uniforms. Edie Redfern, who recently moved from Illinois to Bellbrook, called herself “a total fan of uniforms” based on her kids’ experience in Illinois.

Miamisburg teenager Cassidy Jackson and her mom, Lisa, both said they’d be OK with uniforms, too.

“Then nobody would judge what you’re wearing, because everybody’s wearing the same thing,” Cassidy said Friday while shopping at Kohl’s in Sugarcreek Twp.

Clothing rules

While rules about school attire usually are spelled out in handbooks, guidelines on T-shirts with political messages or violent imagery are more complex. An online brochure from the American Civil Liberties Union spells out the problem.

“Schools can prohibit you from wearing clothing with ‘indecent’ or other messages that may cause a disruption,” the pamphlet reads. “Of course, students and school officials can often disagree about what may or may not be disruptive.”

Ohio ACLU staff attorney Drew Dennis said many school policies focus on clothing that could “disrupt the learning environment,” linking back to precedent from the 1969 Tinker vs. Des Moines Supreme Court ruling.

That case involved students wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Dennis said the ruling gives schools some right to limit what students wear, but not simply because they dislike the message — they need real evidence that it is causing a disruption.

Given this year’s political debate over the Confederate flag, Wesney and Dennis were asked whether a student could be told to remove a shirt depicting that flag. Their answers shows the uncertainty of the issue.

“I haven’t even thought about it,” Wesney said first, before considering the issue. “We’re creating a learning environment for all students and if it causes a disruption, whether it’s the Confederate flag or anything else, then we’re going to deal with that situation.”

Dennis said whether the school district had that right likely would come down to “what the administrators in that school district reasonably believe and can forecast would happen as a result” of someone wearing the shirt.

Dennis said it’s very rare for dress code disputes to be resolved in court, but Waynesville had one in 2012. A federal judge upheld a teen’s right to wear a “Jesus Is Not a Homophobe” T-shirt and ordered Wayne Local Schools to pay $20,000 in damages and court costs to the teen.

Required uniforms

A few public schools eliminate such concerns by requiring students to wear school uniforms. Trotwood requires uniforms for kindergarten through eighth grade, as do a majority of Dayton Public School elementaries.

Dayton’s Cleveland Elementary tries to make details clear on its website — what colors are allowed, shirts tucked in, pants pulled to the waist, and a reminder that jeans, sweatpants and leggings are not uniform pants.

Ohio law allows schools to enact dress codes as long as they do four things — take suggestions from parents, give six months’ notice before starting, help poor students get uniforms, and allow occasional uniform exceptions for groups such as scouts.

Local Catholic schools also require uniforms, and Carroll High School principal Matt Sableski said the idea behind it “is simplicity and conformity and unity, so no one person stands out above the others.”

Sableski said he gets the occasional complaint about the cost of the uniforms, since families order them online from Lands End, but he said the school chose that supplier because of durability.

“The focus is not on what everyone’s wearing, the focus is on what you’re learning and the type of person you’re becoming,” he said. “That’s why we like uniforms.”

Student approach

Wesney said part of the problem is that much of the clothing that’s being produced today for teens is short or small. But he said students should have a professional approach.

“I tell parents, you don’t dress your son or daughter as if they’re going to the beach. It’s not that you need business attire, but you have to respect the environment,” he said.

When a Centerville student is wearing something inappropriate, they usually are escorted to the office, where they could be given a different shirt to wear, or have to call parents to have other clothes brought in. Penalties start with a warning and could escalate to removal of parking privileges, detention or, rarely, suspension.

“Typically it corrects itself,” Wesney said. “It’s a little embarrassing to be escorted to the office for a dress code violation, so that stops it for the most part.”

Staff photographer Ty Greenlees contributed to this story.

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