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Will dress code cover teachers?
By ROBERT KING, Times Staff Writer When teachers and school district officials sit down for contract negotiations next week, one item on the table will have nothing to do with salaries or health insurance benefits. It will be about what teachers wear. Superintendent Wendy Tellone said district officials have fielded at least 20 complaints in the past year about how teachers and district office staffers are dressed. Most of the time, Tellone said, the complaint is that people are just dressed too casually for a professional organization. And those complaints come both from within and outside the school district family. "We have received complaints on a kind of regular basis about that," she said. At a recent meeting, principals from the county's middle and high schools made it clear that they want teachers and staff to be held to the same standards as students. Tellone considers the matter important enough that she is instructing her point man in labor negotiations, Edd Poore, to talk with union representatives about what it means for employees to be "professionally" dressed. And she's even talking about surveying teachers to get their views on the subject. Already, she has conducted a staff survey of district office employees about the appropriateness of wearing jeans on Fridays. By a slim margin, Tellone said, jeans were deemed not appropriate. And dress slacks now reign. As it stands now, the rules on staff attire are much less exact than those students face. The student dress code is detailed, mentioning rules for makeup, jewelry, symbols printed on clothing, hats and sunglasses. The staff dress code is vague. It says employees are "expected to be well groomed and dressed appropriately." And it is crafted with the pleasant reminder that "personal hygiene and appearance set examples for students." The student dress code covers more than a page. The staff code is three sentences. And, in recent years, the dress code for students has gotten even more restrictive. Now, eight of the county's 17 schools require uniforms or a limited number of colors or types of clothing. The most common wardrobe is khaki pants or shorts and a polo shirt. At schools where uniforms have become mandatory, a few dissident parents have asked whether teachers would wear the uniforms. And indeed some teachers do, though on a purely voluntary basis. Poore says he has not fielded any complaints about dress in the past five years. But he said there are some issues that could stand some discussion. One of them is casual Fridays, which were originally intended to allow staffers to wear school colors or school shirts. But he expects the discussion about staff dress to delve into some of the same issues that affect students. "We don't think teachers ought to come to work in halter tops, if they have," Poore said, "or that they should come to work in short shorts, if they have." Hernando High principal Elaine Sullivan said she is pleased with the way her staff dresses, which she refers to as "business casual." But she said principals want to make sure they are on the same page when it comes to enforcing dress codes, both for students and staff. To that end, principals have been exchanging tips on how they deal with student dress issues ranging from short shorts to spaghetti straps. The problem with the staff dress code, she said, is the need for a common definition about what is appropriate. To School Board Chairman John Druzbick, the question of how teachers dress is one that deserves a look, even though he says he's not aware of problems with inappropriate dress. "Whatever we expect out of our children, we sure as heck should expect of our staff," Druzbick said. To Cynthia Moore, president of the Hernando Classroom Teachers Association, this type of discussion seems unnecessary and potentially detrimental. "It might turn into some things they don't want to open," Moore said. Rather than write some new policy, Moore says, principals who have a problem with the way a staff member is dressed should simply go to that person one on one and talk about it. Moore, who teaches at Spring Hill Elementary, says her colleagues are dressed just fine. And she said school officials need to consider the jobs teachers do as they think about the issue. Some teachers who deal with severely disabled students must get down on the floor to help their kids -- a task more suited to blue jeans. And what, she asks, about physical education teachers? "You've got to consider the job," Moore said. "I would hope they don't bring it up." -- Robert King covers education in Hernando County and can be reached at 754-6127. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com.
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From today's Hernando Times |
