Web site created about school dress

By Emily Richmond

Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004 | 9:22 a.m.

A Clark County School District parent launched a Web site Wednesday aimed at gathering public input on the controversial dress code policies being carried out at some campuses.

Maribeth Lewis of Henderson said she was motivated to create the Internet site after attending the Sept. 9 meeting of the Clark County School Board. Several parents and students told board members at the meeting they were unhappy with the decision by some principals to create "Dress for Success" or "standard school attire" policies that were more strict than the district-wide dress code regulations.

"The parents weren't consulted and they should have been," Lewis said. "It's not appropriate for a principal to act unilaterally without input from the community."

Lewis said she was dismayed to hear two honor students detail how they were pulled out of class for not wearing shirts that met their schools' standards of appropriate attire.

At Liberty High School, Kim Jacobs has been kept out of class several times in the past week for wearing T-shirts bearing religious messages.

Lewis' son, now a sixth grader at Schofield Middle School, attended Twitchell Elementary School in Henderson last year. Twitchell is one of nine campuses participating in a mandatory uniform pilot study. Lewis said she is relieved that her son is no longer at a uniform school.

"Those polo shirts and twill pants were expensive," Lewis said.

To participate in the pilot study, the elementary schools were required to poll parents and show at least 70 percent of families were in favor of mandatory uniforms. No parent surveys or community input meetings were required for schools to adopt "standard school attire" or "Dress for Success."

Lewis' Web site, www.lvdresscode.com, includes a section where people can post their own views -- both in support and opposition of the policy -- as well as cast a vote in an opinion poll. The site will stay interactive for the next month after which the results will be given to the School Board, Lewis said.