New dress code forces Cedar Hill students to wear only three colors

by Brian Allen of TODAY Newspapers

Prompting a new answer to the classic joke "what's black and white and red all over?"

Students attending Cedar Hill schools for the 2007-08 school year will now have their color choices limited to the district's official colors: “Cedar Hill” red, black and white.

The CHISD board of trustees approved the new standardized dress at its July 16 meeting but postponed a planned vote on the code of conduct at Superintendent Horace Williams' request.

In his report, Williams said district staff was still working to clean up the code and make it a more user-friendly document.

Assistant Superintendent Kim Lewis said the current code of conduct had the look of a document developed over a series of years by a series of committees. He hopes by going through the document and taking out duplicated language the code will be a more useful document.

The Texas Association of School Boards has developed a code of conduct model for districts seeking guidance on the issue.

Lewis urged the board to proceed with the dress code because parents want to go school shopping and need to know which clothes to buy.

“Tonight, we'd like to deal with the issues that we're already getting calls about every day,” he said.

Trustee Amy Allen asked how soon the board needed to approve the dress code. Lewis responded that a start date of Aug. 27 buys CHISD a little time, but not much.

The dress code, on the docket as part of the consent agenda, of course got pulled for further discussion of the always thorny issue.

Trustee Valerie Banks was pleased with the limits on colors, but called for greater enforcement of the policy from principals.

“If a child gets to fourth hour and they're in violation, that teacher isn't going to send them home if they've made it that far,” she said.

Banks also said the district needs to make sure retailers, parents and students are fully aware of what “Cedar Hill” red is.

Trustee Sonya Grass wasn't happy with the dress code in its current form, specifically with a restriction barring 7-12 graders from wearing outside coats in the building.

“What are you going to do if you don't have a locker?” she asked. “Are you going to drag that coat around all day?”

It was Banks' understanding that students did just that last year.

Allen countered that what she had heard of students doing was saying they were cold, and the teacher being fine with that explanation.

“I was one of those teachers you may not have liked,” Allen said. “When I was a teacher I was more concerned that they were learning. If they were chewing gum as long as I didn't see the gum and they were learning, I didn't care.”

Allen also felt parts of the code were in conflict. One paragraph says that shirts must be tucked in, another says they can be no longer than fingertip length.

That seemed to express Grass' sentiments as well. She was afraid that the age-old explanation that the code prepares children for the business world doesn't apply anymore.

“Steve Jobs debuted the iPod in blue jeans,” she said. “These are 21st century kids and they need to see the things we're telling them match the world around them.”

Allen made a motion to strike the section on fingertip length from the code, and that motion passed with Banks and Trustee Mike Marshall opposed.

Then the board voted to pass the rest of the dress code as written with Allen and Grass opposed.

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