Kids, teachers agree: let students wear spirit T-shirts daily


Student School Board Member Michael Manning proposed the dress code change. (File photo by Jonathan Simmons.)
Student School Board Member Michael Manning proposed the dress code change. (File photo by Jonathan Simmons.)
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The county’s kids and their moms and dads don’t, generally, agree about school clothes: Parents say the district’s dress code has reduced morning debates about clothes. No, it hasn’t, the kids say. Parents say it makes clothes shopping less expensive. No, it doesn’t, the kids say.

But there’s one point they do, generally, agree on: a majority of students — 62.3% — and a plurality of their parents — 47.2% — think kids should be allowed to wear school T-shirts every day, as proposed by Student School Board Member Michael Manning, instead of just on Fridays, as the policy stands now. 15.2% of parents answered “other,” and 37.6% opposed the change. Teachers and school staff largely agree, with 53.4% supporting the change, 25.7% opposed and 11% answering “other.”

The 14-question survey the district used to compile data on student, staff, parent and community opinions on the dress code was created by district staff to inform School Board members before an upcoming 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 3 workshop to discuss Manning’s proposal.

“What I’m asking for is that the board will have a conversation about a very small change,” he said at a Nov. 18 meeting. “On Fridays, students can either wear a polo shirt or an already approved spirit wear shirt. … I’m asking that we expand the Friday spirit wear so that students can wear the already approved spirit shirts any day during the week.”

Since Manning made his proposal Nov. 18, the board has had that conversation, meeting twice in workshop about the proposal but both times delaying a vote to gather more information.

Board Member Sue Dickinson took a strong stand against Manning proposal at a Jan. 20 workshop, reminding fellow board members how much work it had taken to get the dress code implemented to begin with.

“We went through so much to get it here, why are we backing it off?” she said.

According to the district’s dress code survey report, just 14.4% of students agree with the current dress code. But 47.6% of school staff do, as do 49.87% of parents.

A total of 54% of parents say the dress code has simplified their family’s morning routine; only 25.3% of students agree. And 46.6% of parents say it has reduced school clothing costs (and 16.8% answered ‘other’), while just 17% of students agreed, 25.6% answered ‘other’ and 57.3% answered ‘no.’

Students scorned the notion that the dress code improves classroom behavior: just 6.6% agreed; while 73.3% disagreed and 20.3% answered ‘other.’ Many of their teachers disagreed with them: 38% thought the dress code improved students behavior, 36.8% said it did not and 25.2% answered ‘other.’

But all of groups agree that the dress code needs to be updating: 91.8% of students answered ‘yes’ to that question, along with 61.1% of school staff members and 61.5% of parents.

To view the entire dress code survey report, CLICK HERE.

 

 

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