Wake schools trying to come up with a gender-neutral dress code that’s not too permissive

It might not be until next year before Wake County students see any changes in the school district’s dress code.

Wake County school administrators told school board members this week that they need more time to develop a new dress code policy that sets rules and expectations for the district’s 160,000 students. Some school board members have complained that the current dress code is biased against female students and leaves too much variability in how it’s enforced at different schools.

“Every step of the way we’re trying to collect input,” Kathryn Chontos, interim assistant superintendent for student support services, said in an interview after Tuesday’s school board policy committee meeting. “We’re having conversations, and any time you have conversations you know you’ve got different people with different viewpoints.

“We’re trying to hear all of that so what we bring to the board provides them with something that they can feel confident in.”

Chontos said it could take three months before a new dress code is ready for presentation, which would put it after the start of the new school year. If the board adopts the new dress code, she said they might not want to have any changes go into effect until the second semester of the 2018-19 school year or the start of the 2019-20 school year.

School leaders are balancing trying to make the dress code gender neutral without also being accused of being too permissive.

Wake changed the Code of Student Conduct in 2002 to include 11 examples of items that are considered inappropriate, including exposed undergarments, sagging pants, excessively short or tight garments, bare-midriff tops, strapless shirts and attire that exposes cleavage.

But over the past 16 years, there’s been debate about how the dress code is enforced, especially because many of the items seem to apply more to female students than male students.

School board member Lindsay Mahaffey has repeatedly questioned how the dress code is enforced. At her urging, the board’s policy committee in April asked administrators to study whether Wake’s current dress code rules should be replaced by the policy used in Portland, Ore.

Portland’s policy has been praised by some women’s groups for its gender-neutral language. Portland’s policy talks mainly about what students are expected to wear, such as clothing that covers breasts and other private parts. It provides far more freedom than Wake in what can be worn at school.

Chontos told school board members that administrators are seeing what parts of Portland’s policies could be used in Wake. Chontos also said she believes that a new policy can be developed that is written with positive wording and is also gender neutral in its language and application.

But Chontos asked the committee to consider having the new policy written in a way that is focused on preparing students for the world beyond the classroom. Chontos cited how back when she was a high school principal, she told students that they needed to approach school as their place of work.

“The kids understood that language because many of them did work and they knew that in Walmart when they were working they couldn’t wear their hat,” Chontos said. “They knew that when they were working they couldn’t wear beach attire, so that kind of language helped a lot in the high school setting.”

This story was originally published August 3, 2018 at 11:38 AM with the headline "Wake schools trying to come up with a gender-neutral dress code that’s not too permissive."