Fashion Furor : Tougher School Dress Codes Raise Questions of Safety and Rights

A trend toward tougher dress codes at Ventura County schools--from high schools down to kindergarten--is touching off a growing debate among school officials, students and parents.

The issue is whether clothing restrictions enhance student safety and academic performance or whether they are an overly hostile reaction to current fashion that infringes on constitutional rights.

Encouraged by a new state law that allows schools to ban clothing associated with gangs, school officials across the county are proposing and enacting dress regulations that range from forbidding baggy, oversized clothing to banning shorts and jeans.

Some educators say such regulations protect students from being mistakenly targeted in gang violence and encourage children to work harder in school.

But some parents, students and school officials say such rigid rules interfere with children’s First Amendment rights to free expression. And they question whether all children in short pants should be lumped with hard-core gang members in the county.

“It takes away their rights, their freedom and their responsibility,” said Cheryl Baron, whose daughter attends an Oak Park middle school that decided this month to forbid oversized clothing. “We all have rights and we all have free will and anytime it gets interfered with or stepped upon, I think it’s out of line.”

While some school officials link clothing to classroom performance, other education experts question whether there is any real evidence that student dress has any impact on school performance.

“I’ve never seen any study that showed a connection between style of dress and academic achievement,” said Pedro Noguera, a UC Berkeley education professor and trustee for the Berkeley Unified School District.

Banning clothing that school officials associate with gangs is nothing new.

Over the past few years, one Ventura County school district after another has prohibited students from wearing apparel marked with gang symbols--in some cases banning all baseball caps because some have been associated with gangs. The new law on dress codes that took effect Jan. 1 simply gives schools the state’s backing for such policies, educators say.

But some schools are going further.

In Ventura, school officials are moving to establish a back-to-basics elementary school that would have the strictest dress code of any public school in the county: Boys would have to wear collared shirts and slacks, while girls’ attire would be limited to dresses or long pants.

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Some Ventura parents are excited about the prospect of sending their children to a school where they will not be distracted by what their classmates are wearing.

“It’s kind of like a discipline thing,” parent Terrie Torres said. “It keeps them more focused.”

Ventura Unified School District Supt. Joseph Spirito agreed that requiring students to dress more formally for school may encourage better discipline.

“The way you dress is the way you behave,” he said.

At schools that already have dress codes tougher than the norm, officials say the restrictions work.

Vista Fundamental School in Simi Valley has had a restrictive policy on student apparel since the school opened 12 years ago. Students may wear jeans, but may not wear shorts except on certain designated days. Girls who dress in leggings must wear blouses long enough to cover their hips. And no one can come to school with orange or purple hair.

Principal Sheila Robbins said she has noticed that when the school’s kindergarten through sixth-grade students do wear shorts, they don’t behave as well.

“We find that there’s a correlation between how students dress and how they behave,” Robbins said. “When they dress appropriately and they dress like they’re going to go to work, then they get their work done and their studies improve. When they dress like they’re going to go to the beach or something like that, then we find we have more behavior problems and they seem to get less work done in class.”

Noguera at UC Berkeley agreed that students who wear outlandish attire may distract their classmates. “There are extremes,” he said.

And he said many urban schools nationwide are introducing school uniforms or establishing other strict dress codes to protect their students against rampant gang violence.

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But Noguera said it is unclear why school districts in relatively low-crime suburban areas such as Ventura County are instituting blanket bans against oversized clothing and similar types of apparel in addition to blatant gang attire.

“It seems kind of like a conservative backlash against anything that seems related to rap culture,” Noguera said. “It probably just is a reaction to the popular fashions for young people, which many people find objectionable--the baggy clothes, the sagging pants.”

School districts that attempt to ban all clothing deemed to be gang attire might be going too far, Noguera said.

The new state law allows schools to set policies banning gang attire only if the clothing is linked to a particular gang, he said. “These policies, unless they are very clearly identified with gangs--such as insignia--verge on violating civil liberties,” he said.

Local clothing retailers said the grunge look of baggy trousers and extra-large flannel shirts might have originated with some gang members, but is now a firmly established fashion trend among law-abiding, middle-class youth.

“It’s all hip-hop,” said an assistant manager at the Contempo Casual clothing store in The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks. “As far as it being gang wear, I don’t really associate it to that.”

And some students contend that it is ridiculous for schools with no gang-related problems to institute bans on so-called gang attire--especially among younger children in lower grade levels.

Oak Park student Ryan McCusker said he is upset about a new ban on oversized clothing at Medea Creek Middle School, which he attended two years ago and where his sister is now a student. Medea Creek officials have said the ban, which takes effect Feb. 1, will protect students from being mistakenly targeted in gang violence.

“It’s just, like, stupid,” 15-year-old Ryan said. “There’s no gangs out here that are going to shoot Medea Creek kids.”

Although the Oak Park school board president conceded that the affluent community has no gang problems, he said the state education code allows schools to ban clothing that is considered dangerous or disruptive.

“If boys are wearing their pants so low that their underwear shows--which seems to be the latest style--that can be considered distracting or disruptive,” board President Robert Kahn said.

Ironically, the city with the biggest gang problem in the county--Oxnard--takes a more tolerant view of some of the current youth clothing styles. Oxnard school officials have resisted broad clothing bans, and some police officers question the usefulness of dress codes.

Oxnard police respond daily to incidents of young people getting assaulted simply because they happen to be dressed in clothing that is clearly gang attire, said Gino Rodriguez, youth services officer for the Oxnard Police Department.

“We’ve got kids that are being stabbed, shot, beat up, strictly by the clothes,” he said.

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When pressed, however, Rodriguez conceded that the current outfits favored by Oxnard gangs are very recognizable: baggy white or black T-shirts worn with oversized gray or green work pants that are frazzled on the bottoms and slit partly up the outside seam.

The gangs differentiate themselves by the initial on their pants belt buckle, he said.

Oxnard Police Sgt. Chuck Hookstra said gang members also dress in baggy shorts or cutoffs that come down to the knee, but they always wear long white socks that prevent any skin from showing. The current style for Oxnard gang members also favors a particular type of athletic shoe with stripes.

But Hookstra said baggy short pants alone don’t mark a child as a gang member in Oxnard. And Rodriguez said youths whose clothes deviate from the standard gang outfits, such as by wearing a red T-shirt, are not likely to be mistaken as gang members by youths from rival groups.

Because gang members will always be able to find a new clothing style to identify themselves, dress codes have little benefit, he said.

“I’m not, per se, for banning clothes,” Rodriquez said.

School officials in Oxnard said they have no plans to adopt a dress code as stringent as that at Medea Creek in Oak Park. Nor do they have plans for a back-to-basics school such as the one now under consideration in Ventura.

The Oxnard Union High School District, which includes five large high schools in Oxnard and Camarillo, already forbids students from wearing certain types of head gear and clothing, such as black Los Angeles Raiders jackets, which are identified with certain gangs.

But Supt. Bill Studt said he draws the line at banning entire clothing styles.

“Just because a kid wears baggy pants doesn’t mean he’s a gang member,” Studt said. “Thirty years ago it was white Levi’s that kids wore. Now it’s baggy clothes. Personally I think it’s a style thing.”

A principal at one of the Oxnard district’s high schools said she would prefer to see students dress more formally for school.

“Our kids still do come in the grungies,” Hueneme High School Principal Joanne Black said. “I would like to see the kids better dressed.”

She worries, however, that forbidding young people from expressing themselves through dress might encourage them to rebel in other ways.

“Kids like to show their originality,” Black said. “They have done that from time immemorial in their dressing. The problem is if you take this outlet away, will they do something that is even worse? They might do face decorations or something. Our kids are very creative. When you step on one thing, they’ll come up with something else.”

But some parents said they believe adults place too much emphasis on giving students freedom of expression.

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Melinda Garrett’s son attends Pierpont School in Ventura, which she hopes will become the district’s first back-to-basics school next fall.

She said she is less enthusiastic about the rigid dress code proposed for the school than a plan requiring parental involvement and enforcing strict discipline.

And Garrett acknowledged that the proposed dress regulations would force a drastic change in the dress habits of her 9-year-old son Tommy, who does not own a pair of long pants.

“He wears shorts rain or shine,” Garrett said. “He’s a beach kid.”

Nevertheless, Garrett said she believes a stiffer dress code can benefit children.

“Sometimes we get a little too worried about that kind of stuff with kids . . . about their creative expression,” she said.