By Katy Savage, Standard Staff
School uniforms at Woodstock Union High School-Middle School could be a reality one day. It’s one idea the school board’s policy committee is looking into as it considers a new dress code.
“I wonder if the savings in administrator time” would make school uniforms “worth looking at,” said school board member Brian Marsicovetere at a recent committee meeting.
The committee is making changes since an all-girl assembly on April 22 sparked talk of gender discrimination. Middle school girls were told their clothing is distracting their male counterparts, they said.
Marsicovetere, who works as a lawyer in Pomfret, had taxpayers in mind when he suggested uniforms. He wanted to ask voters their opinions at the next Town Meeting.
“I feel like it’s worth at least considering,” Marsicovetere said.
He also suggested hiring a lawyer.
The number of public schools that require school uniforms increased from 13 to 19 percent between 2003 and 2012, a study on the U.S. Department of Education’s website found. School uniforms are more prevalent in urban, highpoverty school districts. There, school uniforms are used for safety measures.
With uniforms there would be no need for a dress code policy at WUHS-MS. The high school and middle school’s current policy, adopted in 1992, says students must groom their hair and wear shoes and attire that doesn’t contain alcohol or drug references. Dress can’t be a “distraction” or “disrupt the educational process or constitute a threat to health or safety.”
Alison Taylor, the mother of an eighth grade boy at WUHS-MS said the word “’distracting,’ is the crux of the issue” at the school. “Distracting for who?” she asked at the committee meeting.
The word “distracting” is commonly used in dress code policies. It’s part of the dress code at Stevens High School in Claremont, New Hampshire and in Burr and Burton Academy’s dress code in Manchester. It’s in the Hanover High School’s policy in Massachusetts.
“Student’s dress may not disrupt the learning environment for students or teachers,” the Massachusetts school policy says.
The same dress code debates at Woodstock are happening across the country. More are calling dress codes sexist and demanding change. Dress code protestors have interpreted the word “distracting” to mean girls have to cover their bodies for boys to stay focused — a mentality that was present at Hartland Elementary School until parents complained that the dress code was discriminatory a couple years ago.
“I was one of those people who was like, ‘You can’t distract the boys,’” HES Principal Jeff Moreno said. “Now I’m going, ‘Wow what a horrible message that is to send,’ even though I had been sending it for years as a middle school teacher and administrator.”
Hartland is a K-8 school. The dress code said clothing should not “disrupt the learning environment.” It required shoulders to be covered by one-inch straps, skirts and shorts to reach the mid-thigh and tights, leggings and “other excessively tight pants” worn only with shorts or a skirt. It was a policy mostly meant for girls, parents complained.
“When the language lingers for too many years or even too many decades it can inadvertently cause the wrong message to be sent,” said Moreno, who recently accepted a position as assistant principal and athletic director at Hartford High School.
Hartland parents and administration spent a year crafting a new simplified dress code, which tossed out inch and length requirements and said “students should dress casually and comfortably.” The dress code has yet to be approved by the school board.
The Vermont Standard reviewed more than a dozen dress code policies locally and nationally. It’s not uncommon for schools to ban inappropriate language on T-shirts and references to drugs or alcohol.
Lakewood High School in Ohio just dropped a ban on hoodies and leggings after students protested, claiming the dress code was sexist.
Windsor Schools requires skirts, dresses or shorts to reach the midthigh and bans strapless shirts and dresses as well as clothing that exposes the midsection, cleavage or undergarments.
Hartford High School bans saggy pants, undergarments from showing and midriffs, to name a few.
“I think now it’s easy to offend either sex not realizing that things have changed a lot in recent years,” said Hartford High School Principal Joseph Collea, who is retiring.
Woodstock Union High School-Middle School teachers and staff met June 8. They broke into groups and talked about what they’d like to see in a dress code policy. They talked about implementing a flexible gender-neutral policy that’s updated yearly to keep pace with fashion trends. They talked about getting the students’ input.
At the committee meeting that night, the school board grappled with how specific to make the policy.
“This is so subjective. Much of what we do is not as subjective as this, which is obviously why some people have such a strong feeling about it,” said Policy Committee chair Victoria Jas.
While Marsicovetere wanted uniforms, Superintendent Alice Worth wanted the committee to consider individuality “as maybe being important,” she said.
Jas said crafting a new policy could take time. There will be another meeting in July.
This article first appeared in the June 16, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.