The district has issued a dress code at the Achievement Academy for the 2009-2010 school year, which states that students are expected to “take pride in their personal appearance such that it does not disrupt student work or distract others, or violate health and safety guidelines.”
Among the dress code requirements:
• No tank tops, spaghetti straps or scoop neck-style shirts.
• Jeans of any color may not be worn.
• Overalls, pants with drawstrings, sweatpants or other athletic pants may not be worn.
• Oversize garments may not be worn.
• Belts must be worn and threaded through belt loops.
• No hats, bandanas, skullies, do-rags, sweatbands or sunglasses may be worn.
• Facial, nose and/or tongue jewelry is not permitted.
Superintendent Dr. David Eubanks said the dress code reflects growing concern about dress and the need to instill in students the proper way to present themselves in public.
Eubanks said the district has received requests from many parents to look at requiring uniforms in schools. This would simplify purchasing clothes for students and also save money, because it would eliminate the pressure on parents to buy expensive designer clothing.
School is a place where students go to learn, not to show off their newest clothes, shoes or jewelry. Implementing a dress code or requiring uniforms would make teachers’ jobs a lot easier.
First off: "Jeans of any color may not be worn."
Any particular reason for this? Most people can dress rather well in jeans. whether they are blue, purple, tan, brown, or even hot pink. It can still be in very good taste. Regardless of color, so long as they are worn on the waist as they are meant to be, jeans should be no problem. Now, if the jeans are 8 sizes too big, wear a belt. If they can't do that, I'm sure that Mr. Jackson with the FFA can provide them with some bailing twine to do the job until they can get home where they are free to where whatever their parents will allow. Can you please elaborate more on your views here?
For my second point: "Overalls, pants with drawstrings, sweatpants or other athletic pants may not be worn."
What is the problem with overalls? so long as a long shirt is worn underneath them, this shouldn't be an isse. Overalls fall in the same line as jeans, they can be tasteful and more than appropriate for school. Perhaps laying out some guidlines/limits for Overalls would be better than all out banning them. An all out bann would just be plain lazy on the schools part. Now, at that same point, sweatpants and athletic pants can also look tasteful. There are several different brands that look very dressy and would be more than appropriate for school. However, I can see an argument for not wearing baggy or oversized sweat pants because they do look slouchy and would probably not present the image you are looking for. However, so long as it does not detract from the other students attention to the class their teachers are attempting to teach; this should not be a factor at all. So it appears there are several arguments on both sides to be made when it comes to sweat pants. No last I checked, some womens/misses/juniors pants were coming with an adjustable waist band. Per your comment it seems you would not allow those either "pants with drawstrings". Now that would translate into "pants with adjustable waist" to some. So either it needs to be more descriptive in what you specifically want banned, or the rest of us may have to assume you'd like to see parents have all their childres clothes tailor made or lots of young ladies running around trying to hold their pants up...
So that's all I've got for now. I would like to come back to this forum and see some healthy debate on this. Furthermore I'd love to see the authors response to my questions and humble opinion which I have stated here.