Letter: Don’t let apathy invalidate dress code rules

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 | 7:20 a.m.

I feel I must respond to the Las Vegas Sun's May 25 editorial that was headlined "A more uniform policy - District should not allow small groups of parents to set dress codes for an entire school." The editorial was a follow-up to a Sun article about the implementation of school uniforms and the small number of parents who had chosen to participate in the decision.

The numbers are clear. Out of the 220 parents of Quannah McCall Elementary School students who were eligible to declare their support or objection to uniforms, only 16 responded with 13 in favor of the uniforms. Because the rule states that the dress code will be adopted if supported by at least 55 percent of the ballots returned, the school will adopt the dress code.

The Sun takes the editorial position that "it is wrong to have a policy under which 13 families can make the decision for 220 families" and that "the School District should require that at least half of the ballots be returned before setting the dress code for an entire school." In other words, the Sun believes that voter apathy should invalidate the results.

This must mean that the Sun editorial board believes that any election (city, county, state or national) in which less than half of the eligible voters participate should be declared invalid. I guess most (or is it all?) of our "elected" officials should head home and the results of all those ballot initiatives should be declared void.

Dorothy Wagner, Henderson