School board members were expected to vote on the policy recommendations at their Dec. 21 meeting, but it was canceled. The next meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 4, according to Karen Angelopoulos district clerk for the Board of Education.

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Discussing change

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LPCSD Superintendent Timothy Seymour was asked by the school board to form the dress code committee after four students expressed their concerns about the district’s dress code policy at a school board meeting on Sept. 21. All of the students disagreed with the district’s policy of banning hats indoors, and three of the students spoke about how they believe subjective dress code policies aimed at female students have the effect of sexualizing young women and discriminating against different body types.

“They should not be telling girls to cover up, but teaching peers to keep their eyes to themselves and be respectful,” Sophomore Carly Karpp said at the September meeting.

The dress code committee met three times in November to workshop possible changes to the policy. Three students, three faculty members, one parent from the elementary school and one parent from the middle-high school, a community member and school board member Martha Pritchard Spear comprised the committee, with Seymour facilitating the committee’s discussions.

Seymour presented findings from the committee at the school board’s meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 7.

Over the course of three meetings in November, Seymour said the committee identified the focus for their discussions and the impetus for the formation of the ad hoc committee; compared the LPCSD dress code to others, including one promoted by the New York State School Boards Association in July 2020, to inform potential updates to the district’s policy; and discussed specific views and potential recommendations on dress code policy changes for the board’s consideration.

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Committee recommendations

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The majority of committee participants agreed that hats should be permitted indoors for high school students, Seymour said, with some agreed-upon exceptions to the rule. The committee agreed that students shouldn’t wear hats when directed not to by a staff member in response to a more formal event or location, when a hat would obscure others’ view in a learning setting, and during the pledge of allegiance or during presentations. The committee agreed that hoods should not be included in a policy permitting hat-wearing.

Seymour said that LPCSD students who attend BOCES at the secondary level are allowed to wear hats there under the Adirondack Educational Center dress code policy, and that was part of the rationale behind amending the LPCSD hat policy. He said the committee agreed that banning hats could suggest to students that some professions that require hats aren’t as important as other careers. The committee reasoned that only high-schoolers should be allowed to wear hats, in alignment with other age-based privileges that students grow into over time — like being able to leave the school building and use cell phones at times.

Seymour said the committee unanimously agreed that the policy stating “tops should be able to be tucked into bottoms” isn’t realistic with today’s styles and “norms of decorum.” Half of the committee thought the policy should be amended to say that “the hemlines of a student’s top article of clothing and bottom article of clothing be able to touch.” The other half of the committee preferred the policy to state that clothing should cover undergarments and private areas — language similar to the recent NYSSBA policy, according to Seymour.

The committee thought that the visibility of bra straps shouldn’t be considered a violation of the dress code.

The committee also unanimously agreed that, regardless of policy changes that may occur in the dress code, there should be a clear procedure shared with staff and students outlining how any potential violation of the dress code would be addressed without the influence of bias or subjectivity from staff.

Committee members unanimously agreed that the district should promote standards of decorum and professional dress by organizing or bringing students to career days, job fairs and other formal gatherings more regularly.

“The notion there was that, if we do believe that we have an obligation as a school district to teach students how to be professional, then we need to provide different venues for them to understand how to have situational awareness about appropriate decorum in such settings,” Seymour said.

Seymour said the committee also discussed decorum, community norms, the role schools play in the lives of students and changing trends. He said many discussions centered around diversity, equity and inclusion.

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Next steps

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When school board President Rick Preston asked about next steps on the dress code policy, Seymour told the board that they could send the report to the policy committee for consideration, place the report on a future board agenda as an action item, or do nothing and wait for the policy review to come around naturally to address the recommendations.

Preston said that the board would put the dress code recommendations at a future meeting’s agenda as an action item, and that the board would “decide which direction (they are) going to go” on the policy changes at that time.