- November 17, 2024
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The Flagler County School Board will vote April 21 on a resolution to expand the district’s dress code for high school students to allow them to wear school logo shirts, team jerseys, or club shirts each day, instead of only on Fridays.
The board voted 4-1 at its March 17 meeting, with School Board member Sue Dickinson dissenting, to advertise the agenda item, proposed Nov. 18 by Student School Board Member Michael Manning, for the April 21 meeting.
Former School Board member John Fischer, who had pressed for the implementation of the dress code, spoke at a March 17 meeting condemning the change.
“I recall, and most of the board members recall, back before we got the dress code, what was happening in our schools and the way the children were dressing,” he said. “Really we went through an awful lot of surveys and work and many, many hours, and I really truly believe that the decision that we made was a tough decision, it was not popular — you cannot make everybody happy when you’re making decisions — but I believe that what we did as one of the first counties in the state of Florida that were courageous enough to go out there and make this tough decision. Again, I would do it again, because I really believe it has made a positive difference in our culture and the children in our community.”
He said the change to T-shirts would make it hard for staff to keep track of who’s in dress code and who isn’t. He suggested the district narrow the code by restricting the color of students’ shirts.
“You go to every day, and you’re wearing T-shirts. Who’s going to be monitoring this?” he said. “As soon as you get that, you’ve lost your dress code completely, because everybody will be wearing a T-shirt.”
Only one student, 14-year-old Buddy Taylor student Gregory Gardner, spoke at the March 17 hearing.
He gave board member copies of a petition he’d circulated in favor of the change, and said he’d written an essay class on the subject for his history class.
“Many of the things that were said that the uniforms do help were cost-effectiveness, discipline, things that would help kids act better in school. The cost effectiveness, I definitely disagree with. You’re paying for pretty much twice the amount of clothing that you would have … for regular clothing. And students that do violate the dress code end up in the office for more time of day than they really should be, and they end up losing time in class instead of being in class.”
He called the dress code a First Amendment issue, and cited a 1969 Supreme Court case, Tinker vs. Des Moines, in which the court ruled in favor students who’d been suspended for wearing black arm bands to protest the Vietnam War.
Justice Abe Fortas wrote in the court opinion, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate,” a line Gardner echoed at the meeting. Fortas’ opinion also, however, noted that in that case, “The problem posed by the present case does not relate to regulation of the length of skirts or the type of clothing,” has not been interpreted as barring schools from adopting general dress codes that do not target certain messages or classes of speech.
Board member Colleen Conklin concluded the meeting by commending Manning for bringing the proposal and Gardner, who by that time had left the audience, for speaking to the board.
“I love that he went out and got a petition together, and signatures, and took the time to do that and then to come and present it in the way that he did referencing Tinker,” she said. “I think it is so valuable to the educational process itself, it just speaks volumes.”
