School Dress Codes - They get better every year!

[The4Montys1418]

They're going nuts with the dress code this year at my daughter's school. I understand that my daughter's school has a uniform policy...so I ran all over Fresno and Clovis, finding bermuda-length shorts with no embellishment or contrasting stitching, in the school's preferred colors. And my daughter has plenty of the collared, buttoned shirts to tuck in. I'm generally pretty understanding about rules...always try to follow them and encourage my children to do the same. I understand some of the rules...not wearing items that can be used as weapons to school; not wearing overly revealing clothing; not wearing red because of problems on campus. That's okay. But last night my daughter handed me a paper to sign about this year's dress code. They are really getting overly fussy in some areas, as far as I can see. Here's a couple of my favorites. "Hair cannot have bangs that hang down into the face, and it cannot be tucked behind the ear or have 'devices' to hold it out of the face...i.e. hairbands, bobbypins, clips, etc." SAY WHAT??? "Students are not to use hairspray or hairgel or anything that unnaturally holds hair in place." YEAH...LET'S GO WITH THE MESSY, OUT-OF-CONTROL LOOK. "There will be no unnatural colors in the hair." AT FIRST LOOK, THAT SOUNDS INNOCENT ENOUGH, THEY DID MENTION RED AND BLUE AS NOT BEING OKAY, BUT THEY'RE EVEN REFERRING TO BLONDE HIGHLIGHTING IN THE HAIR...EVEN JUST A COUPLE OF STRANDS! They are requiring one girl to either let her bangs grow out, so the contrast is gone (BUT, GASP, THEN IT WOULD HANG IN HER FACE, AND SHE MIGHT NEED A DEVICE TO HOLD IT OUT OF THE WAY!!!) or they want her to cut her bangs off at the top of the highlighting. Now there's a flattering look! Yet they DO require hair to be ponytailed for P.E. I haven't seen a scrunchy or band yet that occurs naturally, so how do they justify that??? And my daughter's hair constantly has short fly-aways that she clips down so they don't stick out of her ponytail. WHAT A REBEL!!!
They also have to wear lanyards with their photo ID on them AT ALL TIMES WHEN THEY ARE ON CAMPUS...or they have to report to the office until you can bring it for them. To many repeat offenses....DETENTION! Oh, and of course, "Shoe laces must not be in a contrasting color to the shoe. They must match the shoe color at all times."

Somebody, somewhere, really needs to get a life and stop nit-picking the small stuff. I signed the dress code, with my own notes that 1) I don't find my daughter's 2 hairclips to be dangerous weapons or distractions, so she will wear them still. and 2) Her shoelaces may not always be the exact color of the shoes she's wearing. There will be times that her shoes will have white laces, even if the shoe is not white.

GEEZ, PEOPLE...GET A LIFE!!!

So, that's life in our world. Lovely place!

[Gail Marshall]

Oh, my gosh. This is just whack! What school? Is it public or private? Let us know how it goes!

[The4Montys1418]

It's Baird Intermediate School...a really good school academically, and the teachers are wonderful...it's just that the dress code has gone a bit over the top this year, as you could tell by my "venting." It gets to the point that if you sweat all the "small stuff" like I listed, the parents become more testy, and a bit less likely to be "on board" with what the school wants.

[kikinbellesmom]

Sheesh!! That is crazy! I was thinking evil thoughts about the fact that they charge $42 PER UNIFORM at Dennis Uniforms for my kids' school uniforms. Even my youngest, who only wears a size 3T - $42 per uniform. But then I saw your post and thought - shoot, I'm happy to have a full-on uniform over a dress code any day, if that's what the dress code is like these days! At least my girls are allowed to have hair bows that match their uniforms, and nobody harrasses us about them having bangs, or the chlorine-induced highlights in their hair! What possible problem could the school district have with putting girls' hair back? Especially when it is so hot out, like today! I agree, someone at the school district needs to get a life.

[crewcrews]

It's Baird Intermediate School...a really good school academically, and the teachers are wonderful...it's just that the dress code has gone a bit over the top this year, as you could tell by my "venting." It gets to the point that if you sweat all the "small stuff" like I listed, the parents become more testy, and a bit less likely to be "on board" with what the school wants.

Before you get bent out of shape at the school and administrators, I'd suggest getting to the root of why the policy was changed. My guess is you have ONE parent, and/or their student, who is a major PIA complaining about every little thing or acting out in such a manner to cause the change.

Chat with your child's current and revisit your child's past teachers-- you'll be surprised how much information they'll share. More often than not, they dislike the policy as much or even MORE than you do as they are the ones it falls upon to enforce it, and they take the brunt of parent complaints.

Join the SSC- it's a great way to have a quarterly audience with administrators and build rapport. Small time investment for quality dividends. Get "on board" by going to the board meeting! Heck.. perhaps you could literally get "On [the] Board"!

I'm not trying to diminish from your complaint; At my kids' school there was a similarly annoying policy change at the end of the school year last year. Because of my relationship with my kids' previous teachers and the administrators, I found out (although not WHO) that it was ONE family who complained to the District and that was the reason for the policy change at our campus, even though all the neighboring campuses weren't adjusting the same practice.

If I were in your shoes I would want to understand the purpose of the policy, and even if I disagreed, I'd want to put forth a good example of obedience for my child by following the dress code as is. Otherwise; the next time he/she doesn't like the household rules, why should they abide they don't like it or don't agree with it?

If I was unhappy enough, I'd have to ask myself why I chose to enroll my kids at a Magnet school.

Better than getting involved, is staying involved. (In no way intended to imply that you are not already involved.)

[The4Montys1418]

I agree with talking to the teachers. I have always made it my policy to talk regularly to the teachers, and plan on continuing that...both to keep up on how my daughter is doing in class, and to support whatever they are trying to do in the classroom. I will be checking in the office on Tuesday to see if there is some compromise to the "no hair clips" rule. My daughter has extremely curly, unruly hair. It is all one length, but she has always had MANY wispy flyaway hairs, that if she doesn't pin them down, will stand almost straight up and be frizzy, especially if she gets hot and "humid" during P.E., which she gets teased mercilessly about. She has never worn anything to school that has received so much as a comment as being out of code and is a good, if somewhat quiet, student, so there haven't been any negative problems with the teachers. I guess I was just amazed at the nit-pickiness of the new hair "rules." And the way I understand it from my daughter, not many of the teachers are very happy about the "no hairclip" rule either...they use them too. So you may be right...there may be one complaining parent that set the whole thing off...though what problems they had with hairclips is beyond me.

[Gail Marshall]

UPDATE: I got a call this morning from Janetta McGensy, the principal at Baird Middle School, who said she had heard about the conversations about the school's dress code on the centralvalleymoms.com blog and also on Opinion Talk at fresnobee.com.

The short explanation is that everything should be fine by now. Here's what happened: A wrong dress code agreement was inadvertently sent out to the parents, parents called to point out the problems and a corrected version was to be sent out today. Done deal.

They sent me a copy of the revised version and there's nothing forbidding hair spray, hair gel, headbands, hair clips etc. I didn't see anything really strange in there, but I could have missed something.

Should be all good now and we moms can go back to thinking about things we should we concerned about: trying to keep up with the kids on Guitar Hero, dreaming up new ways to hide vegetables in their food, refreshing our memories of Shakespeare to help with their English homework and trying to identify which of our little darlings left the milk out on the counter without resorting to a spy camera.

[The4Montys1418]

Yes..my daughter brought home a new dress code to be signed today, and the hairclips, hairspray, etc. are no longer listed on it. I know that the principal at Baird tries to be extremely fair with the rules that are enforced, so I'm glad she stepped in so quickly to correct this one. Baird really is a great school!

[crewcrews]

Everything's always OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end.