West Deptford School Board Hears Dress Code Concerns

West Deptford school board policy committee chair Peter Guzzetti has spent weeks heading out to PTO meetings and talking with parents about the potential effects of a move to a , and has heard plenty of support and opposition to the idea.

But in his presentation to the rest of the board Tuesday night, one thing has rung true: The current system isn’t ideal.

“One consistent message we have heard is a general dissatisfaction with the current dress code,” he said.

A cadre of concerned parents who turned out to voice their opinions agreed with that sentiment, though most were opposed to the standard dress code as it’s been discussed so far, via an example policy similar to those in Paulsboro, Overbrook and Lindenwold high schools–khaki pants and polo shirts, essentially–that had been already presented to parents.

Tracy Hastings, who said she doesn’t support the change, took issue with the current system.

“Instill some discipline, enforce the dress code you have,” she said. “I don’t understand why we’re doing all of this changing if you can’t enforce what you currently have in place.”

The option of updating the current dress code is an option, Guzzetti said, though that doesn’t necessarily put things in black-and-white, either.

“There are significant challenges associated with enforcing an open dress code,” he pointed out.

Along with Hastings, Meg Czuba raised the concern of the cost to families.

“You have families who rely heavily on hand-me-downs,” she said. “This will be a financial impact if they have to clothe all their children in a specific dress code to go to a free public school.”

There was also a certain amount of confusion, stemming at least partly from the meeting with the middle school PTO, about the example policy’s specificity, which superintendent Kevin Kitchenman put together as a model put together from other districts’ to show how things could possibly look in West Deptford.

“We’re not debating that specific policy,” Guzzetti said. “That was brought up as a sample policy to generate dialogue.”

Guzzetti said the board would consider whether there’s support for the proposal before delving into the details, with more meetings and a possible phone survey in the works to continue to gauge the community’s interest.

Policy committee member Jim Mehaffey, who said he’s personally opposed to the idea, said getting as much feedback as possible is a priority before a decision can be made.

“We’re not going to rush through this,” Mehaffey said. “We’re still way in the infancy stages.”