School Board delays vote on dress code policy

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 9:33 a.m.

After more than three hours of presentations, public comment and heated discussion, the Clark County School Board put off a vote Thursday on proposed changes to its controversial dress code policy.

With expressions ranging from exasperation to exhaustion, the five School Board members present for the vote agreed at 10:30 p.m. to continue the discussion Oct. 25. Member Mary Beth Scow was out of town and member Shirley Barber departed shortly before 9 p.m.

A final vote is now likely to occur Nov. 4.

Members appeared divided over the staff's recommendation for the policy, which would allow individual schools to establish dress code requirements more strict than the districtwide regulation.

District staff's recommendation calls for schools that want stricter dress codes to survey parents and show at least "50 percent plus 1" of families supported them. In a letter to her colleagues Scow suggested the threshold be raised to 65 percent, something several other members said they would support but district staff have called unrealistic.

"Whatever we do tonight it's going to be 3-2, either in favor or opposed," School Board member Sheila Moulton said.

Thursday's discussion included public comment from 30 people, including students, administrators, school police officers and parents. The speakers appeared evenly divided between those who supported the proposed regulation and those who opposed it.

Donald Jacobs, whose daughter has been suspended from Liberty High School for 25 days because he has refused to make her comply with the campus' stricter dress code, said the School Board was playing word games with the public.

Jacobs said denying that the "standard student attire" regulation was akin to a uniform policy was the same as "Calling a dog a canine, a cat a feline and an automobile a car."

Douglas Kisling, a 10th grader at the new Canyon Springs High School, said he was skeptical about the "Dress for Success" requirement. But after nearly two months of school, Kisling said he is now in favor of it.

"I don't have to think about my clothes when I'm at school," Kisling said. "And kids aren't being judged by their outfits."

To make their case in favor of the proposed dress code policy, district staff presented a 45-minute presentation, including a slide show and carefully choreographed slate of public speakers.

At the nine schools that have adopted the stricter "standard student attire" policy for this academic year, there have been "staggering"improvements in student behavior and a reduction in disciplinary issues, Mojave High School Principal Andre Denson said. Suspensions in September 2004 at those campuses were down 18 percent from September 2003, and classroom disruptions decreased 46 percent, Denson said.

Chaparral High School Principal Penny Elliott said the fact that her students are now required to wear solid-color shirts and khaki or black pants or skirts helped campus police quickly identify several potentially dangerous trespassers, including a carful of teenagers with a loaded revolver in the vehicle, a man with an arrest history of lewdness with minors and and third person carrying four plastic bags of marijuana "obviously packaged for sale."

School Board member Larry Mason praised the staff presentation but said he wished the energy and expense that had gone into preparing it had been directed toward other areas more directly related to student achievement.

"A lot of manpower, a lot of hours went into this," Mason said. "If this district would concentrate as much on our dropout rate, on our English Language Learners or special education students as we did on this, imagine what we could accomplish. Just imagine."