What’s good for the students …

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.

With two Henderson elementary schools poised to join a pilot program requiring students to wear uniforms, the Clark County School Board is considering expanding the dress code requirements to the teachers as well.

The proposal, which calls for school employees to wear attire similar to the student uniforms, did not sit well with the Clark County Education Association, which represents the majority of the district's 14,000 teachers.

"The school district cannot unilaterally decide to put teachers in uniforms," Mary Ella Holloway, the union's president, said. "This is a contractual issue, and teachers need to have a say in this."

Teachers' contracts already require them to dress in "a professional manner," Holloway said. For the district to demand teachers conform to specific clothing styles or colors is inappropriate, she said.

School uniforms have been credited with helping to improve attendance, reduce disciplinary problems and eliminate much of the peer pressure to keep up with expensive fashion trends. Opponents, including the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, say there's no hard evidence of a connection between school uniforms and student achievement.

Edward Goldman, superintendent of the district's southeast region where the uniform pilot study is taking place, said many teachers are already following the dress code voluntarily.

"They're not going to ask a child to buy into a philosophy and then not uphold it themselves," Goldman said.

Teachers who dislike the idea of the uniform are free to seek positions at other schools, Goldman said. The proposed regulation change also allows a school's principal to exempt a teacher from participation, Goldman said.

Students at three Henderson elementary schools -- Lamping, Twitchell and Vanderburg -- are now in their second year of the pilot study. The School Board voted 5-1 in June to approve a notice of intent to add Walker International and C.T. Sewell elementary schools, also in Henderson, to the list of uniform campuses. The final vote will be held Thursday.

The proposed change to teachers' dress codes wound up on Thursday's agenda because of questions raised at an earlier meeting by board members Susan Brager-Wellman and Denise Brodsky. Both asked why students were being required to participate in the pilot study while teachers were not.

"I firmly believe teachers are the examples that the students look to and follow," Brager-Wellman said Tuesday. "It's only fair to the kids that we be consistent on this."

At Walker International Elementary School, where the uniform policy is voluntary for students, there's nearly 100 percent participation by employees, Principal Alan Bowman said. Parent volunteers regularly show up in the polo-style shirts with the school's logo and khaki trousers favored by the teachers, Bowman said.

Lamping Principal Michael O'Dowd said when his school joined the pilot study he asked his staff to fall in line with the dress code. For the most part teachers have done so, O'Dowd said.

"It would be a big help if we could expect the teachers to follow the same rules as the students," O'Dowd said this morning.