The new Salem-Keizer School District dress code, released July 31, 2019.
Salem-Keizer students can wear hats, tank tops, leggings, yoga pants and ripped jeans under a new districtwide dress code released Wednesday.
The change comes after a group of female students in June urged the school board to adopt a more progressive dress code that didn’t single out attire typically worn by young women.
“When a student gets dress coded it makes them feel ashamed, hurt, small, not relevant, ugly, not loved and embarrassed,” student Claire Campbell told the board.
District officials said following those comments that they’d been working on revisions and planned to release them before the new school year.
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The district previously had broad guidelines in place for student clothing which prohibited “such as, or substantially similar to, halter tops, backless tops/dresses, cut-offs and clothing that exposes inappropriate areas including midriffs.”
But individual rules were left up to individual schools and sometimes included restrictions on short length or prohibited items like hats, ripped jeans and yoga pants.
The new policy applies to all schools. It can be modified for individual students with special needs, but schools can’t set more restrictive guidelines across the board, district spokeswoman Lillian Govus said.
“It frees up our educators to teach rather than be inspectors,” she said.
Weddle and Hallman elementary schools have uniforms, which won’t change with the new policy in place.
Under the new guidelines, students must wear a shirt with a front, back and fabric under the arms; pants, jeans, shorts or a skirt; and shoes. “Clothes must be worn in a way such that genitals, buttocks, breasts, and nipples are fully covered with opaque fabric,” the policy says.
Hats are now acceptable, and ripped jeans may be worn as long as the rips don’t expose underwear or buttocks. Previously, any rips had to be below the thigh.
Ripped jeans were among the clothing items Campbell singled out in her testimony, saying being asked to cover them is embarrassing.
“You have to go the entire day with duct tape covering that hole. It can be very humiliating,” she told the school board.
Students urged school board members to update the district’s dress code at a June 11 meeting.
Visible bra straps and underwear waistbands under other garments are also OK. Previous rules forbid sagging pants.
There’s no longer a length requirement for shorts, so long as they cover the buttocks. Previously, the district required shorts to be mid-thigh or longer.
There are still some prohibitions in the new rules, including gang-related clothing, depictions of drugs or alcohol, violent imagery, pornography, hate speech and swimsuits outside of swim-related activities.
The new policy comes with enforcement guidance for staff to avoid embarrassing students in violation. Staff can ask students in violation to put on their own clothing that is compliant or have parents bring alternative clothing.
“Students should not be shamed or required to display their body in front of others,” the memo reads. “Staff cannot ask students to kneel or bend over to check attire, and cannot measure straps, comment on cleavage coverage or accuse students of ‘distracting’ others with their clothing.
Govus said the guidance is intended to ensure uniform enforcement between staff who may have different opinions about a student’s clothing.
Reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
