With the removal of uniforms at Toano Middle School, students have more freedom in their clothing— but they still can’t wear whatever they want.
At Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, students can be reprimanded for dress code violations with a range of consequences, from a verbal warning to in-school suspension.
At York County School Division, consequences for repeated violations can be as simple as a conference with the student or parents or as severe as a long-term suspension from 46 to 364 days, according to the district’s Student Code of Conduct. These levels of punishment are divided between students in kindergarten through third grade and then fourth through 12th grade.
“Range of consequences exist to allow administrators to address individual situations,” said Katherine Goff, spokeswoman for YCSD.
While those violations are punishable, neither school district keeps track of dress code violation statistics.
Eileen Cox, spokeswoman for WJCC, said violations are monitored and addressed as a part of an individual student’s discipline records. However, when patterns emerge, such as over half the students at Toano choosing to opt out of uniforms, school administrators work with the community to review any needed changes.
If there are not any concerning trends in violations, each individual school in the district can establish their own dress code.
At the high school level, the division’s three schools maintain similar policies, with statements such as “Clothing or accessories which are form-fitting, suggestive, provocative, disruptive, defamatory, or distracting are not permitted.”
At the middle school level, issues of hygiene are directly addressed in a similar fashion at each school, with statements such as “Clothing and hair should be kept clean and neat” for Hornsby Middle School and “hygiene is important in school and should be attended to daily,” at James Blair Middle School.
York County School Division maintains a division-wide dress code, according to the division’s student handbook. Goff said in 2015 the division created a committee of school administrators to review the dress code which resulted in the common dress code across the division.
The committee now includes parent and student input and maintains annual updates and reviews of the policy.
In both districts there are solutions to smaller dress code violations, such as having a parent bring a change of clothes or providing clothes for a student. In WJCC, Cox said individual schools have a number of t-shirts, sweatshirts or sweatpants that can be loaned to students.
“The purpose of the dress code is to encourage students to dress in a responsible manner suitable for the school setting,” Goff said.
