Coast school’s ‘sexist’ dress code enforcement unfairly targets girls, upset parents say

Parents of girls who attend West Wortham Elementary and Middle School are growing increasingly frustrated with the Harrison County School District’s dress code policy they say unfairly punishes female students without giving any explanation.

A new principal, Michael Weaver, took office at the beginning of this school year, and has since ramped up enforcement of the dress code. Parents say his practices — including sending students to in-school suspension for minor infractions without notifying their parents or giving them the chance to bring in a change of clothes — violate the district’s own dress code policy.

After the Sun Herald reported on a 5th grader who was sent to ISS for the length of her hoodie, others have come forward with stories about their daughters’ experiences with the new principal.

The change in enforcement has resulted in girls missing many days of school and has imposed a financial burden on some families forced to buy clothes toward the end of the school year.

Both Weaver and Harrison County superintendent Mitchell king did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Sun Herald.

Kayla Mcgee said her daughter, 5th grader Ainsley Ballenger, “was almost in tears” when she left school last Tuesday. It was then McGee learned Ainsley had been placed into ISS for the entire day for a shirt she says did not violate the dress code.

McGee says she confronted the principal in his office, saying her daughter’s shirt was “fingertip length” and thus within dress code. The dress code policy requires tops worn with leggings to be at least as long as a student’s outstretched fingers at her side.

McGee said the principal said that Ainsley’s shirt was “going to ride up a little bit” when walking and wouldn’t be allowed to walk the halls all day while pulling it down.

McGee called the sudden enforcement of the dress code at West Wortham “sexist.”

“It’s making them grow up to be ashamed of what they are,” the Coast mom told the Sun Herald. “And there’s no sense in them having to wear clothes that’s three times bigger than what they are.”

Girls are targeted by dress codes, Coast parents say

Ainsley isn’t the only girl who has been sent to ISS for the length of her shirt.

Delaney Cameron has missed five days of in-person instruction this school year because of dress code infractions.

The 8th grader’s mother, Stephanie Cameron, says they were minor violations like a shirt worn with leggings being slightly higher than her fingertips, or on one occasion a dark maroon streak in her naturally red hair.

Cameron says since her daughter is almost 6 feet tall, with long arms, “it’s really hard to find a shirt long enough to be fingertip length for her.”

Prior to Weaver’s arrival, Cameron said, Delaney had never been in trouble despite wearing leggings and T-shirts virtually every day during the previous school year.

Four of the five days she was in ISS, Delaney said there were no boys there for dress code violations.

Cameron said she tried several times to meet with Weaver early in the school year to discuss her daughter’s suspensions.

“He refused to even talk to me,” Cameron said. “He said whatever I wanted, if it had to do with dress code, then he would not meet with me.”

The ‘fingertip’ check

Two students have told the Sun Herald they’ve been stopped before making it to class to get a “fingertip” check on their tops, which determines if shirts meet dress code requirements.

Delaney and 5th grader Shiloh Fore said they were stopped and asked to put their hands by their side to determine if their shirts were fingertip length.

Weaver denied Shiloh Fore’s accusation that he asked her to raise her sweatshirt to see whether the clothing underneath violated the dress code.

“I do not ask any students to raise their hoodie,” he wrote in an email to Fore’s father.

Tamra Calvert said her daughter was asked by Weaver to remove her zip-up jacket while waking into school Feb. 4, the same day as Shiloh’s suspension.

Calvert’s daughter said she was pulled into the ISS room, where Weaver asked the child to take off her backpack and jacket and to put her hands at her side. She was given in-school suspension.

Calvert said her daughter’s jacket did not violate the dress code but the T-shirt underneath did, because it was “maybe not even a centimeter less than her fingertip.”

Todd DeMitchell, a professor of education at the University of New Hampshire who has written extensively on dress codes and gender, told the Sun Herald that Weaver’s practice of calling out students for dress code violations as they walk into the building amounts to public shaming.

“I think that shaming doesn’t work for adults. It doesn’t work for children either. And that’s not the role that we should be playing. That’s not our role as educators, to shame students, to embarrass them, to disparage them,” said DeMitchell, a former California elementary school teacher and principal

In his email to Fore, Weaver wrote, “At no time was any child embarrassed by myself or anyone on my staff. I am a professional and I always present myself as one.”

Calvert says the heightened enforcement of the dress code policy has imposed a financial burden on her family, which struggles financially.

“We shouldn’t have to buy a whole new wardrobe just because, almost at the end of the school year, they want to be extremely strict,” she said.

ISS policy changes

Reports from students and parents show that West Wortham administrators in recent weeks have intentionally abandoned the policy of calling the parents of students in ISS for dress code violations to give them the chance to bring in a change of clothes.

In his email to Shiloh Fore’s father, Weaver apologized for not notifying him of his daughter’s suspension, but did not explain why he had not done so, or say that the school’s policy had changed.

The Harrison County elementary school handbook stipulates that “if an administrator deems the student attire inappropriate, parent(s) will be required to bring a change of clothing in order for a student to remain in school for the day.”

Delaney said the instructor supervising the ISS room told the students on February 3 that their parents would not be called, a departure from previous practice.

Calvert told the Sun Herald she called the school on February 4, after receiving a text message from her daughter saying she was in ISS, and asked why she had not been notified. She says assistant principal Amy Bosarge told her on the phone that the school was no longer notifying parents.

McGee confronted Weaver on Feb. 8 about her daughter’s suspension over her clothes. She said Weaver told her he would have made Ainsley stay in ISS, even with a change of clothes.

Response to parents from administrators

After Cameron complained to Weaver, he suggested she reach out to the school board and she did.

School board members told her King would call to address the complaints, but Cameron said he never called her.

Last week, Calvert did manage to speak to King. The superintendent did not believe that Weaver asked her daughter to remove her jacket to check her shirt, she said.

Calvert said the superintendent’s response amounted to “not [only] calling my daughter a liar, but every other child that’s getting ISS a liar. I mean it would be different if just one child was saying it, but there’s multiple children that are saying it.”

King said he would investigate and promised to handle the situation if he found it to be true. He called her back and said Weaver denied the incident and that the was nothing else he could do, Calvert said.

McGee has heard from a number of parents who have are considering taking their kids out of the school due to the dress code policies — and she may join them.

“My husband said that if it gets any worse this year, mine won’t be going back,” she said.