District Discussing Enforcement of Dress Code

A discussion has yet to be had, but the board of education’s policy committee recently heard a presentation from interim principal Lew Ludwig about the dress code—and the recommendation from him was to leave the current policy alone.

Ludwig had formed a committee to discuss the possibility of revising the dress code for students and staff.

“The recommendation was basically to leave what we have in place, and just reinforce what’s there,” said Daniel Petrozelli, board of education member and chair of the policy committee.

And at the April 10 meeting, they agreed that the most important thing to do is just enforce what is already in place.

“The preliminary work accomplished was that they had the policy, and it needs to be better communicated and better enforced,” said Superintendent of Schools Michael Schilder.

Board member Jill Gladstone said the dress code is an issue she has been thinking about for several years, and she is looking forward to the board discussion. The decision, she said, does not have to “reinvent the wheel.”

“We have plenty of codes from which to choose and which we can tinker with a little,” she said. “Right now, the middle school dress code says no spaghetti straps, the high school one says to wear appropriate clothes.”

For several board members, they are just concerned about the timeline at this point.

If a recommendation is going to be implemented for the fall, board president Evan Lerner said, it needs to be communicated soon because information shouldn’t be processed over the summer.

“We don’t want to do this in the summer, because I don’t think the public will have too much interest in it,” he said.

Board member Jeffrey Brookner said he thinks it is fine to do the legwork on studying this for now, and it can be put into effect at a later date.

“I think if the time is not sufficient to do this it over the summer, I think it’s fine to do the homework, but the decision and public input should not be taken over the summer,” he said. “I don’t think it should be effective for some period of time.”

“If it happens over the summer, make it effective Jan. 1 or something,” he added.

What do you think, Bridgewater? Should there be a formal dress code, or should administrators and teachers just better enforce the policy as it is already written about wearing appropriate clothes, nothing too short?

Take our poll, and let us know in the comments what you think!