A group of Starkville School District parents is planning to appeal the SSD board of trustees” decision last week to implement a dress code this fall in city schools.
The group has 10 days from the March 2 ruling to file an appeal. Plans are in the works to file an appeal in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court Friday, SSD parent Sarah Coleman said in an e-mail.
Parents have hired attorneys who will be at the Starkville Sportsplex conference room today from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to obtain names and collect signatures for affidavits for anyone interested in joining the appeal.
Dozens of parents have spoken out against the dress code at public meetings, on Internet comment boards and in letters to the editor. A Facebook page for people opposed to the policy had more than 420 members as of Wednesday night. But the group kept mum Wednesday on the grounds for its impending appeal.
“I can not tell you much because right now we are still working on (the appeal),” said Kate Fabel, a Starkville School District parent opposed to the policy. “The lawyers will be there (today). They can answer all the questions.”
Starkville School District officials also are keeping silent.
“It would be premature to comment at this time,” SSD Public Information Officer Nicole Thomas said.
School officials have cited safety concerns as one of the main reasons for wanting to implement a dress code.
Some schools and school playgrounds in the district don”t have fences around them, so students and others tend to come and go, which can make it difficult for teachers and administrators to determine who is a student and who isn”t, Superintendent Judy Couey said at a public forum on uniforms last month. Additions to these school buildings and the merging of schools also has led to increased student populations on each campus, which makes it even more difficult to keep tabs on students and others, Couey said. Plus, some of the campuses border wooded areas and, on two or three occasions in the past year, non-students have been caught on school property during regular school hours.
“We have supervisory issues that have been created by building on to these existing campuses and we have very large student numbers,” Couey said. “We have a desire to have a welcoming, open campus, but we have issues that are created by putting new buildings onto buildings that were built during a different time. Our job as administrators is to plan in a way that will anticipate anything that can possibly happen. We can”t plan to react. We have to plan to anticipate.”
With plans to issue student identification cards already in the works for the 2010-2011 school year, Couey said a dress code would add another layer of safety.
Opponents have spoken out against the dress code, saying fences and other security measures would make schools safer than uniforms. Others cited a loss of freedom and creativity, while some have said it would be hard for some families to afford new District-approved clothing for their children.
Opponents also have said school district officials weren”t listening to their concerns about the policy and cited two community surveys, in which students, parents, teachers, administrators and other staff were polled on whether or not they favored a dress code.
In the first survey, 45 percent of the 367 respondents were opposed, according to results on the Starkville School District Web site. In the second survey, 67 percent of the 1,527 respondents were opposed.
The SSD board of trustees passed the dress code policy unanimously.
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