Student dress code up for makeover

COEUR d'ALENE — A draft of the Coeur d'Alene School District's student dress code policy will continue to be worked on by school board members.

Trustees unanimously voted during a second reading at Monday's regular meeting to table taking action on the policy until after they have time to further review and discuss it. The draft was first read at the Oct. 9 school board meeting, when the chair of the district's Student Advisory Group, Luke Sharon, gave a presentation outlining the need to update the policy.

The Student Advisory Group works to listen to and amplify the voices of students — both concerns and positive ideas. The group noted in the presentation how students in middle school and high school have shared over the last three years that the dress code policy is one of their biggest issues and concerns.

One of those concerns is disparity in enforcement. While gathering data for the presentation, which included surveying students, the Student Advisory Group found that 120 dress code violations by 88 high school students were reported in the 2022-23 school year, while no violations were reported at the middle school level in that same time. A gender disproportionality in enforcement was also found, as 18.4% of dress code violations were attributed to males while 81.6% involved female students.

Teacher discussions comprised 78.4% of the student-reported enforcement incidents, while only 21.6% of the spread was official violations reported through Skyward, the district's information and data management system, Sharon said at the Oct. 9 meeting. He said that shows how teachers are using their own discretion when it comes to addressing dress code violations with students.

"They aren't really looking at the policy," he said. "They may just say, 'Put on a hoodie,' but that's still talking to that student, not necessarily going through the current dress code policy."

The new proposed policy seeks to add clarifying language surrounding gender, changing clothing trends and enforcement. One example is the removal of the word "blouse" to be replaced by "top."

The current student dress policy was adopted Aug. 11, 2014, with revisions in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Coeur d'Alene School District officials also conducted surveys of students, teachers and parents, and the results were included in Monday's board materials. The district received 207 responses, many from students.

Several of those who took the student dress policy survey lauded the Student Advisory Group for taking on the work of updating what many called an outdated policy.

"I appreciate the work of SAG and the district on this new policy," Mary Hamilton Garcia of Coeur d'Alene responded. "I am highly in favor."

Coeur d'Alene resident Cathy Kraus answered that she felt the guidelines in the updated policy are sensible and do not discriminate against or "shame" any individual student.

"It's a good step," she said.

Dale Johnson, a Woodland Middle School physical education teacher, was among those who disagreed with this policy.

"It is very, very vague," he said in his survey response. "Going to be more difficult to enforce. A little disappointed that more clarity is not given. A very generic policy. If that is what you wanted that is what you got. Most teachers do not do any dress coding (enforcement)."

Trustee Lesli Bjerke said she was not comfortable moving forward with this version of the draft policy.

“I still think there are some things that are still a little too vague," she said.

Trustee Allie Anderton agreed with Bjerke. Vice Chair Casey Morrisroe said he was not surprised by the amount of students who responded.

“I thought the (number of) staff and parent comments were pretty lacking, based on this policy,” he said. “Maybe they thought we did a good job or they didn’t know about it, and I’m not sure which it is. I was a little surprised there.”

He said he likes the proposed policy better than the current policy, but thinks it could still use more work.

Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Trent Derrick said it is a difficult policy.

"There's no doubt about it," he said.

Trustees are expected to hold a workshop on this topic after Thanksgiving.

Visit cdaschools.org to view board materials as well as current and proposed drafts of the policy.