Board to examine dress codes

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, Sept. 24, 2004 | 11:34 a.m.

The Clark County School Board will tackle its controversial dress code policy at a work session set for Oct. 14.

Board members have been pressing for a work session on the subject since earlier this month when Kim Jacobs, an honors student at Liberty High School, was sent home from school for wearing a T-shirt with a verse from the Book of Mormon incribed on the back. Since then, Kim, a junior at the Bermuda Road campus, has been suspended for a total of eight days.

At Liberty students must wear khaki-colored pants and red, white or blue T-shirts.

Kim said Thursday she was keeping up with her homework assignments but missed attending classes.

"It's not the same as actually being there for the discussions," Kim said. "But I'm not going to give up my First Amendment rights."

The work session has been scheduled to coincide with one of the School Board's regular meetings.

Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada ACLU, said the organization is poised to file a lawsuit on behalf of Kim and her father, Donald Jacobs. The ACLU had urged the district not to take punitive action against students who refused to comply with the "Dress for Success" or "standard school attire" policies that have been implemented at more than two dozen campuses throughout the district.

Confusion has ensued over variations in the district's dress code requirements. The districtwide regulations prohibit certain items of clothing, such as navel-baring outfits and baseball caps. But the regulation also gives principals the authority to ban additional items that are deemed a distraction to the learning process.

Critics of the stricter dress codes say principals have used their authority to unilaterally implement "Dress for Success" and "standard school attire" requirements without consulting parents.

That's a loophole that must be closed and the policy clarified, Peck said.

"The problem with the district's uniform policy is that it isn't uniform," Peck said. "We don't believe the policy is sensible and we don't think it's being enforced in a competent manner."

A community meeting for parents will be scheduled for early next month to discuss the issue, said Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the district.

School Board members say they're tired of talking about dress codes and are eager to return attention -- both their own and the public's -- to more pressing educational concerns.

"We've done this to death," said member Shirley Barber. "Let's hope we finally get some resolution on this and move on."

Complaints were also lodged against the School Board's limitation of public comment on the dress code issue to one minute per speaker, rather than the three minutes typically allotted. In setting the limit School Board President Susan Brager-Wellman noted that the topic was not an agenda item and that most of the 15 speakers signed up to speak had already made repeated trips to the podium to express their views at past meetings.

"Twenty people saying the same thing 100 times doesn't impact us any more than one person saying it once," Brager-Wellman said.

Thursday's speakers included members of the Liberty Student Council, who turned out -- in school attire -- to support the policy.

Peck called the time limit an "outrageous affront" to the parents who showed up to do what the School Board has long claimed it wants -- participate in their children's educational process.

"These kinds of actions further undermine the competency and credibility of the board," Peck said.