Protest of High School Dress Code Fizzles : Education: Opinions on the Antelope Valley district’s anti-gang measure are about evenly divided as students and parents speak out at a school board meeting.

An expected major protest by Antelope Valley high school students and parents against a new anti-gang student dress code that last week sparked student walkouts failed to materialize Wednesday, and school board members reiterated support for the policy.

Several Palmdale High School students charged that they had been threatened with suspension or expulsion by school officials if they spoke out against the policy at a meeting of the Antelope Valley Union High School District Board of Trustees.

Those students blamed the poor turnout for the protest on the purported threats, but others said student apathy may have been the major cause.

Palmdale High School Principal Linda Janzen said she counseled students to pick spokesmen to represent their views rather than mobbing the board with dozens of speakers. But she flatly denied threatening to discipline students.

“I don’t know who told them that, it wasn’t me,” she said.

About 50 people turned out for the meeting, but only about a dozen students and parents spoke to the board on the dress code issue. About half said they opposed the policy, but the other half said they supported it. Last week, at the height of the protest, students had vowed to organize a far larger group of students and parents to speak out against the policy.

“This code will not deter gangs in any way. They will just find new ways to display their affiliations,” said Ed Jones, who has two children attending Palmdale High School.

But school board member Steve Landaker, who supported the dress code when it was adopted last month, said: “We’ve been taking a lot of heat for that. But, until the community tells me different, that’s how I’m going to vote.”

The new policy, narrowly adopted by the school board after months of debate, spurred large student protests last week at two of the six campuses in the nearly 10,000-student district.

Similar to those becoming increasingly common in other Southern California school districts, the new dress code gives school officials the authority to outlaw whatever student clothing or apparel they consider to be gang-related. It also outlaws all baseball-style caps, except those issued by the school district.

School officials call the policy an attempt to keep gangs from gaining a substantial foothold in the high desert’s high schools. But students who are not gang members have argued that the policy is vague, infringes on their rights to free expression and will do little to stop gangs.

Jennifer Bunce, a 17-year-old Palmdale High School senior who did speak against the policy at the meeting, said the school’s principal had told her that she would be suspended or expelled if she expressed her opposition to the policy. She believed other students had been similarly warned.

“That’s why a lot of the students didn’t show up tonight,” she said.