Nope the LP dress is shorter than fingertip and would fail many dress codes, cute or ugly.
Dress codes can be just one more source of friction between the school & community/parents/kids. Why have more battles as distractions?
@roycroftmom
“Or how about while supremacy t-shirts? The confederate flag? Pro-gun shirts showing images of weapons? As long as it is a parent wearing it, anything goes?”
Did anyone here advocate wholesale acceptance of anything goes? No. (And you know it.) What we’ve discussed is how some people believe this woman looks unkempt and like she just got out of bed – and others think she looks like well, lots of people we see around town. Please don’t put words and ideas into our mouths… or in this case, posts.
Some years ago, there was a 73 page thread…
Not only was that mom not wearing offensive wording or imagery on her clothing, it fit the written dress code that was magically available a day later.
If the community came together to create a policy that included things like no t shirt dresses or turbans, then this would have been more fair. Interesting from the articles that this is the only school within that district that has a parent dress policy. And that it’s got a higher number of minority families than the others.
But people will keep pretending there isn’t a classism and racism influence in the policy.
@Marian At my work, we need to dress professionally. No jeans (except on certain days) and nothing too low cut. The men at my work need to wear a collared shirt and tie or a polo shirt or button up shirt.
So, refusing to allow this woman to register her child at the school solves what problem exactly? It would seem to me that children with supposedly “bad” home role models need access to public education the most. Regardless of fashion opinions, who is this policy helping? What purpose is it serving? More parental involvement with children’s education is better, period. Restricting involvement based on petty fashion concerns is, to be blunt, unconscionable.
Do people really care more about parental dress than the well-being of the kids? Seriously?
@Leigh22 It was the same at my kid’s school where I also work! And the elementary kids would loudly blurt out: " I can see your underwear!" or “What is that?” That would embarrass me enough to stop dressing like that…
It’s one thing if a parent shows up in jeans, a t-shirt, and flip-flops or workout pants or leggings. It’s a whole other deal if they show up in pajamas, daisy duke shorts, hot pants, tight sweat pants that have “spicy” written in glittery letters on the derriere (yes that was a parent at my kid’s school), or major cleavage or a thong showing above low riding jeans…
This applies to students and teachers as well
When we saw the woman wearing the pants that said “Spicy” on the rear end…it was my H who pointed them out to me and said I should get some pants like that. Haha. My D said they looked stupid. My S who was still in elementary school at the time asked “Why does it say spicy on her pants?” Then he said, “oh maybe she likes spicy food!” followed by “I like spicy food too, can I get pants like that?!”
Mom rolls out of bed in a tee used as a night gown and shows up on school grounds wearing said tee and a bunch of curlers masked by a scarf. She gets a lecture from the school administration that her clothes are inappropriate for an adult coming to school to transact business. Mom makes a scene, police get called, and mom gets escorted off the property (thank god no one was shot!). Mom calls the local paper. Paper publishes an “outrageous!!” article. In response, the school principal overreacts and issues a dress code for parents prohibiting the type of clothes mom was wearing.
Meanwhile, a bunch of adults get into arguments about whether the choice of clothing is a constitutional freedom. 
Yep, that is pretty much it in a nutshell.
The head covering that the woman wore looks a lot like the cute coverings sold on cancer websites for post-chemo. I can’t see any reason to have those banned. It’s not as if she’s wearing a shower cap or not covering enough of her body. It’s messy when people start judging the attire of others. That’s a big sticking point that my friend has with the CCRC–they didn’t like her and her H’s attire for the dining room in the evening as guests several times and she still has some bad feelings toward them because of it. The CCRC also refuses to allow residents who violate the dress code to enter the dining room until they change their attire as well.
Hindsight is 20/20. IMO, and as someone noted back on page 5, the principal should have allowed the mom to register her kid and then invited her into her office to talk about the school, it’s values, it’s efforts to create an environment in which it teaches kids the importance of appearance, etc.etc. and that she is in the process of creating a dress policy for (hopefully all–not just parents) who come to the campus to enforce what’s taught at the school. Thus, welcoming the parent to the school and gently and diplomatically letting her know about the culture. As I say, hindsight is 20/20. Either way, the principal handled the situation very badly.
The student was not zoned to this school. Apparently the student and the mother had problems at their prior local high school, and were given permission to switch. My guess is that this parent may be problematic wherever she ends up.
Well I finally saw the photo of the woman - I don’t see the issue. Collage1 is correct - was handled poorly.
I also won’t be surprised if there is more to the story. My first thought was that these two women had a prior relationship, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. And I haven’t read anywhere about her being threatening to the Principal. The Principal has an excellent reputation, though the letter seems unprofessional to me.
In the mother’s situation, I’d have asked for a copy of the dress code, and then been on the phone with my attorney asking what to do.
Was the teenager being enrolled at the school with her mom? The Principal and her mother are both modelling behavior for her.
“the letter seems unprofessional to me.”
Yes. Poorly written and way too much left open to interpretation to be a solid dress code.
“the letter seems unprofessional to me.”
Yup. Poor decision by this principal. It’ll be interesting to see if she lasts.
BTW, did anyone else notice this in the link in the first post? That’s a heck of a lot of turnover.
“Outley Brown took over as Madison’s principal midway through the second semester this year, becoming the school’s fourth principal in five years. She replaced Paolo Castagnoli, who lasted just shy of one year on the job.”
Most people don’t just “have an attorney” on call.
And the vast majority of people aren’t going to think to call any attorney over something like this.
Honestly, the “I’m going to phone my attorney” mindset is not something I ever experienced until I moved to a more upper class community.
Well, the mom did think to call the press, which was probably more effective than calling an attorney. The school the student is transferring from had 3 students die from gun violence in a one week period this year, and students heard semi automatic gunfire while having lunch in the cafeteria. The new school is better, and this principal is award winning and highly regarded. Challenging urban schools have great difficulty with turnover
@BunsenBurner well said!
Now when a person shows up in their birthday suit with nothing but tassels on their you know whats…then we can start getting up in arms!
Romani, that was sort of my point. Some of us have more resources and power when we are bullied.
Whenever I’ve told someone I need to call my attorney for advice about a situation, they back off. If she’s not someone with an attorney’s number in her phone, calling the press may be her best option. But it escalates the situation. I’ve just been mulling what was the correct behavior to model for her daughter in the situation she describes. It’s not clear to me she had a better option. Some of us posting here would have had more options to deesculate. I don’t think she should have just let this go.
Assuming the situation is what she describes.
Our mantra when dealing with difficult administrators when our kids were in HS was “what is our goal here?” That was always very useful to me.