Students, Deputies Clash Over Dress Code

Antelope Valley high school students protesting the first day of an anti-gang dress code clashed with school officials and sheriff’s deputies Thursday, boycotting classes and attacking a patrol car, deputies said. Two students were arrested, and two others were being sought.

The students were angered by a ban on all but official school baseball caps and wide-ranging authorization for school officials to prohibit any clothing regarded as gang-oriented.

Class boycotts at Palmdale High School and Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster drew about 200 students each.

At Antelope Valley High, the demonstration led to an assault on

the patrol car of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, deputies said.

About 200 students rushed a sheriff’s sergeant who had detained four men off campus about 11:20 a.m., pelting his car with rocks and debris and chanting “Let them go,” deputies said.

The sergeant was questioning four adult gang members who had nothing to do with the demonstration, Sgt. Ron Shreves said, but the demonstrators may have believed those being detained were fellow students.

A 16-year-old boy described as a leader of the group was arrested and detained at Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, said Shreves. He and two other students will be charged with assault, Shreves said.

School Principal Yvonne Healey said she could not confirm the Sheriff’s Department’s version of the incident.

At Palmdale High School, about 200 students staged a peaceful but noisy walkout for three hours. Most returned to classes about 10:30 a.m. after deputies warned the protesters they could be arrested. No arrests were made.

But at Quartz Hill High School, a 16-year-old boy was arrested for threatening a teacher when school administrators began seizing banned baseball caps from students during a morning sweep of the campus, said Deputy Gil Arce.

The protests reflected widespread student discontent with the controversial dress code adopted last month by the Board of Trustees of the Antelope Valley Union High School District. School officials began enforcing the code Wednesday.

Students at the three main campuses, arguing that the policy unfairly infringes on their rights and will do little to halt gang violence, said they plan to protest again at Wednesday night’s school board meeting.

School officials said they did not expect further student class boycotts today.

“People should be able to dress the way they want at a public high school,” said Scott Welcome, a 16-year-old Palmdale High School junior and one of the protesters.

“They’re just trying to turn this school into a prison. Why should we suffer for what the gang-bangers do?” asked Jason Oster, a 15-year-old sophomore.

Despite the arrests and protests, officials in the 10,000-student district said they remained content with the new policy and have no immediate plans to change it. “All I’ve said is it’s going to take some time for the kids to understand what the policy is,” said Dist. Supt. Kenneth Brummel.

The new policy outlaws any attire that school officials consider gang-related, including all non-high school baseball caps, the policy’s only blanket prohibition.

Students who violate the policy first get a warning, then a suspension for a second offense, and possible expulsion beyond that.

However, the district’s decision to not provide a specific list of what it considers gang-related clothing and apparel has led to widespread misunderstandings of the policy among students. School officials said they believe that is partly responsible for the protests.

Students repeatedly ticked off long lists of brands, types or colors of clothing Thursday that they said have been banned by the district, including British Knight tennis shoes--called “Blood Killers” in gang parlance, referring to one of two main gang groupings----professional sports team jackets and even any clothes in solid blue or red.

But school officials insisted that such clothing has not been banned, if it is not part of a broader dressing pattern that indicates gang membership. “It has to do with the manner, the situation, the combinations of clothing that might be observed,” said Palmdale Principal Linda Janzen.

No dress-code-related protests or problems were reported at the district’s three smaller high schools: Desert Winds, the continuation school, and Highland and Littlerock schools, two temporary sites with only ninth-grade students in attendance.