S.D. School Dress Codes--’Relaxed’ About Covers It

A recent Times article explored an East Coast trend toward the use of uniforms in public schools. This article looks at school dress codes in San Diego County and a move to follow the East Coast lead.

The dress code at La Jolla High School is simple, explains Vice Principal Cassandra Countryman. Students can wear almost anything as long as it is appropriate for school and doesn’t disrupt the “learning environment.”

But what, exactly, does she consider disruptive? Nose rings, ripped jeans, spiked hair?

“Let’s put it this way,” said the no-nonsense administrator. “If it shows your (derriere), it’s inappropriate.”

Welcome to high school dressing in the ‘80s, where students can wear ripped jeans, if certain parts of their anatomy don’t show, pink hair, if nobody cares, and white pancake makeup that makes them look like devotees of Marcel Marceau.

No longer must students worry about the restrictive dress rules that existed in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. Today’s high school dress codes request decency and little more. “We have them cover their bottoms and their tops, and that’s about it,” said Joan Adler, vice principal at Mission Bay High.

Today’s dress codes are so relaxed that several students admitted they didn’t even know rules existed. Perhaps that’s a tribute to their desire to dress neatly and stylishly. Or it could be their ignorance. Either way, most are adamant in saying they like and appreciate the leniency.

“The way you dress is really an important part of you,” explained Oliver Andriesse, 16, of Crawford High School, who accessorizes his basically black outfit with an earring, a Mickey Mouse watch and hair gel. “The school already teaches you how to act and how to think. If they tell you what to wear, we might be wearing uniforms. We would be like a little army.”

Not every student believes the dress code should be as flexible as it is, including Lisa Gomez, 16, who wouldn’t mind wearing a uniform to school.

“It’s more convenient. You wouldn’t have to take 10 minutes out in the morning to decide what to wear,” said the Crawford High student.

Not only are uniforms convenient, they can save students--and their parents--money.

That’s why Principal Lowell Billings at West View School in South Bay hopes to institute a voluntary uniform policy at his elementary school, where 25% of the students come from low-income families. The school district’s Board of Trustees approved the plan in August, and parents are now reviewing it.

“We’re seeing parents going broke trying to buy the latest tennis shoes and T-shirts for their kids,” he said.

If the plan is approved, students would be able to opt for the uniform. Because West View is a public school, uniforms cannot legally be required. Billings hopes to design an outfit pleasing enough that most of his 450 students would rather wear it than their own clothes.

Another South Bay school, Pence Elementary, has been chosen as a pilot school for a voluntary dress code, which may begin as soon as January.

High school students are more likely to rebel at wearing a uniform. Robin Hunt, a freshman at Mission Bay, thinks students would complain at any suggestion of a more severe dress code.

“Most people know how to dress and what’s right,” she said.

With all the freedom students have to bend such relaxed rules, surprisingly few do.

“It doesn’t get out of hand. Students don’t take advantage of the dress code, because they can wear whatever they want,” said Bashiri Cooper, a 16-year-old Crawford High student whose tastes run to shorts, T-shirts and some serious high-top tennis shoes.

“On the whole, I think our kids look very sharp,” said Augie Bregante, vice principal at Crawford. A longtime educator, Bregante remembers when the rules were far from lenient--when boys’ hair had to be short but girls’ skirts couldn’t follow suit. “When I was teaching 25 years ago, boys couldn’t wear their shirttails out. Today that’s not the case.”

Now Bregante spends more time worrying about whether his students might be wearing clothes emblazoned with gang insignia--one type of clothing absolutely forbidden at Crawford and high schools throughout the county.

Besides being asked to wear clothes that do not disrupt the learning environment, high school students throughout the county follow brief guidelines regarding dress.

Most schools forbid T-shirts advertising alcohol, tobacco, drugs, sex or anything obscene. Students cannot expose obviously inappropriate areas of their torso. They are asked to dress “appropriately,” however they may interpret that. The only absolute is that they must wear shoes--a state law.

Anything that may convey gang membership, from an earring to a colored bandanna in the pocket, is strictly verboten and taken seriously by school officials. April Reeves, a 17-year-old student council member at Mission Bay High, was called to the office once when she wrapped a bandanna around her ankle as part of an outfit. Administrators asked her to remove it.

Dress codes began changing in the late ‘60s, when students and their parents started filing lawsuits against restrictive rules, challenging rights to freedom of expression. Dress regulations fell away as quickly as students began winning those cases.

“I’m convinced that in some cases, our dress code was an infringement on the rights of the students,” said Al Cook, an assistant superintendent for San Diego city schools who was a vice principal in 1968. “For example, today it would be hard to justify why boys were not allowed to wear shorts. Back then, they could merely say it was unacceptable or not in good taste.”

It wasn’t long before students began challenging the rules in court. When a student at a San Diego high school was suspended for dying his hair green during the late ‘60s, then won a court challenge, dress codes began to relax.

Today’s students might notice a classmate with green hair, but they would hardly be as astonished as they were 20 years ago.

“We always get some kids every year who dye their hair every color under the sun,” said Mission Bay’s Adler, who, like other administrators, barely bats an eyelash over such costumery.

Following court challenges across the nation, schools began turning to the community and its residents to help them set dress standards. The relaxed code at Mission Bay High reflects the easygoing nature of Pacific Beach, Adler says. Students wear shorts more often than at other schools, along with lots of bright colors.

Emma Lopez, a senior who commutes from Paradise Hills to attend advanced classes at Mission Bay High, doesn’t care for the beachy look. Dressed in a black mini-skirt, cropped top and blazer, Emma said she would rather see students dress more conservatively, and in darker colors.

“There are too many shorts. I think it’s kind of sad,” she said.

Illicit T-shirts create the biggest dress code problem at the county’s high schools. During the first week of classes at Poway High, Gary Price spotted a student wearing a shirt advertising Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax. Luckily, the young administrator knew what the product was.

“Sex Wax. It’s a real wax. I use it on my surfboard. But we can’t have that kind of thing around school. So we asked him to reverse his shirt,” Price said. “Kids here are allowed their individuality to a point. But when it’s interfering with the educational process, then we call the students out of the classroom and discuss it with them.”

Price said he has more trouble with Poway students who are tardy for class than he does with dress code violators. “For the most part, the kids at Poway dress fairly nicely. They’re clean and they’re well-groomed. But then, this is a fairly affluent area.”

Affluency seems to have little to do with whether students violate the dress rules. Although most Crawford High students don’t have the money to buy their wardrobes at Nordstrom, students there looked as neat, albeit different, as those at Poway or Mission Beach High, a middle-income school.

Administrators concede that one reason they continue to maintain a flexible dress code is to avoid court challenges, which crop up across the country from time to time. In 1987, a high school in Northern California rescinded its controversial ban on T-shirts and clothing advertising beer because it feared costly legal battles.

But school officials also stress that students are more conservative today than during the ‘60s and less apt to challenge the rules. Although a dress code infraction today might consist of an obscene T-shirt, problems during the ‘60s were often more outrageous.

Cathy Hopper remembers working as a vice principal at Patrick Henry High when she was called to talk to a girl wearing an army overcoat with nothing underneath. When the girl’s mother arrived to take her daughter home, the woman berated Hopper for not allowing her daughter to dress as she liked.

That fashion idea would never win the approval of Kristie Gudith. Although the 17-year-old readily acknowledges that she loves to wear skin-tight jeans, “the kind that cut the circulation off,” with blouses and painted T-shirts, she wishes more students at Crawford High would dress up and wear the skirts, heels and jeans she favors.

“Everyone thinks of Crawford as a poor school already. I think it would help the school’s image,” she said. And perhaps students’ behavior.

“Kids act in different ways depending on how they dress,” said Mission Bay’s Adler. “In education, things always seem to come full circle. . . . I see us moving into a more conservative era, with more attention to dress codes. As we learn more about what impacts behavior, we may pay more attention to dress.”