Fifteen schools favor stricter dress codes

By Emily Richmond

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2005 | 10:53 a.m.

Fifteen campuses are expected to restore stricter dress code policies after showing enough parental support to satisfy a new Clark County School District regulation governing mandatory uniforms.

Only one of the 16 schools that surveyed parents last month, the new Canyon Springs High School, failed to secure the 55 percent approval rate required by the district.

Cashman Middle School had the highest approval rate at just over 80 percent. Spring Valley cleared the cutoff with 55.9 percent and Canyon Springs fell short with 52.3 percent.

The percentage of total surveys returned ranged from a low of 17 percent at West-Edison Middle School to a high of 42 percent at Cram Middle School.

The district surveyed 911 households with students at West-Edison and received 155 replies. Of those surveys, 79 were in favor of the stricter dress code and 34 were opposed. Another 40 surveys were returned to the district as "undeliverable."

Lynn Rose, one of a half-dozen parents suing the school district in a federal lawsuit challenging the dress code policy, called the survey results "a joke.' Principals have been openly campaigning in favor of the uniforms and parents who oppose the stricter policy have been bullied into keeping quiet, Rose said.

Her daughter, an eighth grader at Garside Middle School, has received "tremendous support" from her teachers for refusing to comply with the stricter dress code, Rose said.

"They tell her they're proud of her for fighting and standing up for her beliefs," Rose said. "My daughter has learned more from this experience than from anything else the entire school year."

The mandatory dress code policy will go back into effect at the 15 schools Monday, coinciding with the start of the second semester, said Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia.

The schools that will restart mandatory "standard student attire" policies are: Long Elementary School; Martin, Bridger, Cram, Findlay, Sedway, Swainston, West, Cannon, Cashman and Garside middle schools; and Mojave, Del Sol, Liberty and Spring Valley high schools.

Garcia said he was hopeful that the khaki debate had been settled, at least for now.

"When you live in a democracy you don't always get your way but you have to abide by the laws all the same," Garcia said. "The process was fair an unbiased and the results spoke loud and clear."

Parents who do not want their children to participate in standard school attire may request zoning variances to another school. However there is no guarantee that there will be enough open seats to accept all the transfer students and the district will not provide transportation.

Infractions of the policy will be treated like any other violation of district regulations, Garcia said.

Varsity student athletes who request transfers will be deemed ineligible for one year, per the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association's regulations, said Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the district. The NIAA regulation applies to any student who voluntarily transfers, regardless of the reason, Orci said. The rule is designed to prevent coaches from "poaching" players.

While some parents and educators credit stricter dress codes with everything from creating a safer learning environment to eliminating competition and boosting student achievement, opponents note there have been no definitive studies linking mandatory uniforms to tangible, positive results.

The surveys were conducted by the district's office of research and accountability and mailed home to families.

Clark County School Board Vice President Ruth Johnson said she has heard more from constituents about the dress code than any other issue since she was first elected eight years ago.

"There's been a significant level of public input," Johnson said. "The community has certainly had its say and those viewpoints were taken into consideration when we considered revising the regulation."

Critics of the district's dress code policy, including the Nevada ACLU, were not impressed Wednesday by the survey's results.

"This is nothing more than a dog and pony show by the district to create the illusion of overwhelming support for mandatory uniforms," said Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada ACLU. "Nothing could be further from the truth."

Allen Lichtenstein, attorney for the Nevada ACLU, said the survey results will have no impact on a pending federal lawsuit filed by the organization on behalf of a half-dozen Clark County parents and students challenging the stricter dress code.

"It's unfortunate that instead of demonstrating real leadership the School Board chose to play word games," Lichtenstein said.

The ACLU's lawsuit claims the district's dress code policy has caused emotional distress and harm by denying students access to the public education and freedom of expression to which they are consitutionally entitled.

Sixteen Clark County campuses, including the originator of the approach, Liberty High School, instituted mandatory dress code policies without first surveying parents.

Following a federal judge's ruling in November that Liberty could not discipline junior Kim Jacobs for wearing religious-themed T-shirts, district officials told the 16 schools to suspend the mandatory policies until surveys could be conducted.

This fall, after months of debate, public meetings and draft proposals, the Clark County School Board approved letting individual campuses set dress-code policies more strict than the districtwide regulation -- provided parents were surveyed in advance and at least 55 percent of the surveys returned showed support.

Schools that had already launched "standard school attire" or "Dress for Success" policies were allowed to request mid-year surveys. But other campuses will have to wait until this spring and, if enough community support is demonstrated, could institute the dress code for the 2005-06 academic year in August.

The districtwide dress code regulation prohibits certain items and styles of clothing, including baseball hats, spaghetti-strapped shirts and low-rise pants. At standard school attire campuses, students are further limited to collared shirts in white or school colors and solid-colored bottoms, typically in khaki, navy or black.

At Mojave High School Wednesday, sophomore Thomas Halbritter said he's considering requesting a transfer to Rancho High School for next year so that he does not have to follow the policy.

Halbritter said Mojave's dress-code policy seemed to have the reverse effect of what was intended.

"Everybody was paying more attention to what we were wearing instead of what we were supposed to be learning," Halbritter said.

Sean Smith, a junior at Mojave who plans to graduate early this year, said while he knows most of his friends and schoolmates dislike the stricter dress code, he knows appearance affects how a person is perceived by others.

"I understand teenagers like to express themselves through their clothes but there's a time and a place for that," said Smith, who wore a black shirt, green and gold patterned tie and khaki pants, an acceptable ensemble under Mojave's version of the stricter dress code policy. "When you dress nicely you're telling people that you take care of yourself and respect yourself. The message doesn't come across as loudly when you wear jeans and a T-shirt."