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July 25, 2005
Hot fashion trends for teachers: Tie quotas in, spaghetti straps out
Flip-flops at the White House aren't the nation's only fashion crisis. School boards and superintendents increasingly are pursuing dress codes for teachers, reports the Associated Press. At issue is the same kind of questionable attire most often associated with students:
In some districts, teachers can get dressed down for wearing skimpy tops, short skirts, flip flops, jeans, T-shirts, spandex or baseball caps. Spaghetti is fine in the cafeteria, but shirts supported by spaghetti straps are not welcome in the classroom.
District 11 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, for example, prohibits sexually provocative items. That includes clothing that exposes "cleavage, private parts, the midriff or undergarments," district rules say.
In Georgia's Miller County, skirts must reach the knee. Elsewhere in the state, hair curlers are disallowed in Harris County and male teachers in Talbot County must wear ties two or three times a week.
"There's an impression that teachers are dressing more and more—well, the good term for it would be 'relaxed,'" said Bill Scharffe, director of bylaws and policy services for the Michigan Association of School Boards. "Another term for it would be 'sloppy."'
The article quotes NSBA Staff Attorney Lisa Soronen advising school boards to take care in crafting employee clothing policies. A board member for Manatee County schools in Florida recently called for an examination of establishing a dress code for employees who work with students. As usual, stories are plentiful of students wearing various controversial T-shirts. And here is a disturbing clothing trend among teenagers: T-shirts sporting gangbanger phrases.
Posted July 25, 2005 2:30 PM
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