Schools Fight Own War--Against Gang Attire

Orange County educators, once concerned about short-shorts, halter tops and bare feet disrupting classrooms, are now clamping down on gang-style fashions in the hope of stopping neighborhood violence from infecting their campuses.

“No gang identification is allowed. They just can’t wear it to school. Period,” said Duane Clizbe, principal of La Vista High School, a continuation school in Fullerton. “We’ve got some local gangs here, and we don’t want that spilling over” into the school.

Two weeks ago, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District updated its dress code to ban “materials, symbols or dress” that could disrupt school operations, joining a growing list of districts that are trying to keep gang attire out of their schools. In addition, the district pledged to assure its students that schools would be free from “fear, intimidation, or physical harm caused by . . . groups and individuals.”

“We’re simply being overcautious,” said Bob Francy, director of student services for Newport-Mesa Unified School District. “Schools in this area haven’t been hit hard with gang activity, (but) there may be a problem tomorrow.”

May Get Worse

Many students, however, believe that toughening the dress policy will do little to curtail the increasing problems neighborhood gangs pose and that it may even bolster the fashionable image of gang-style dress.

“Making a dress code would make people rebel more,” said Clyde Perezcasteneda, a senior at Santiago High School in Garden Grove, where baseball-type hats have been banned.

“A hat (alone) is not going to get you shot,” said Perezcasteneda, a football player and student government member. “It’s the clothes you wear, the people you hang around with and the way you act.”

Jane Alvarez, 14, a Santa Ana High School freshman, is also critical of strict dress codes.

“This is America,” she said. “It’s a free country and you can wear what you want.”

Most districts in the county avoid the word gang in dress codes and instead set broad guidelines for schools. They hope to prevent gang attire by forbidding students to wear certain baseball-type hats, jackets with gang logos, bandannas and red or blue-dominated outfits. Blue and red are the preferred colors of the Crips and Bloods gangs, which are based in Los Angeles but have made inroads in Orange County in recent years.

Up to Principals

The final decision on exactly which hats, jackets and other items are banned is usually left up to school principals.

“These are judgment calls,” said John Nicoll, superintendent of the Newport-Mesa school district. “And we tend to support the people making them.”

But making those calls can be tough.

Bob O’Higgins, principal at Santiago High School, said it is difficult to keep up with students’ changing tastes.

“You generally go with the change in style, the change in symbols,” he said. The current rage at Santiago--and O’Higgins’ latest targets--are colored shoelaces, bandannas, hats worn backward and gang jackets.

“But that doesn’t mean that somewhere down the line they’ll get ahead of us,” O’Higgins said. “It’s hard. You have to be alert. It’s just a constant vigilance.”

Maria Valdivia, a freshman at Santa Ana High School with three brothers in gangs, knows the garb well. “Gangs? They wear khakis, Levi’s, Hush Puppies, Nike, (polo-style) shirts buttoned all the way up, dickies and Levi cords,” she said.

“Kids are very creative dressers, and I don’t mind that,” La Vista Principal Clizbe said, citing in particular the various dyed, spiked and shaved hair styles of the day.

But gang-type clothing, he said, goes too far.

“It wouldn’t bother me, if it didn’t (hurt) the school,” Clizbe said. “But it does. It frightens kids.”