Sonoma Valley Unified School District discusses gender equity in dress codes

The Sonoma Valley Unified School District is considering updating its school dress-code policies, which some students have said unfairly targets female-identifying students.

The dress code was agendized as an informational item at the SVUSD trustee meeting on Dec. 14, and district officials said they will consider any potential changes to dress codes at a meeting in the near future.

Adele Harrison Middle School student Siena Kelly is among the local youth circulating a petition to lobby the district to update the dress codes with an eye toward gender equity.

Kelly spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting about how the school’s dress code creates a double standard.

“My peers and I feel the Adele Harrison dress code is hampering our ability to learn and unfairly affecting female-identifying students,” said Kelly, urging to board to consider adopting standards in line with the Oregon National Organization for Women’s model dress code.

The Oregon NOW dress code was created in 2015 in an effort to improve gender equity by focusing on the covering of private parts and undergarments – and less on prohibiting specific types of clothing at schools. It was adopted by Portland Public Schools in 2016 and is being held as a model for other districts to emulate in their efforts to mitigate dress code violations that single out girls and students of color.

Under Adele Harrison’s current dress code, said Kelly, “a female-identifying student could be wearing the same-cut shirt as a male-identifying student and the female student would get dress coded for that shirt.

“The rules have been heavily placed on young girls and are objectifying their bodies,” Kelly said.

Among the rules in the Adele Harrison dress code are prohibitions against such items as fish-net fabrics, sheer leggings, strapless tube tops, half-shirts, spaghetti straps, racer-backs, bare midriffs, pajama pants, bare/open-back tops and “excessively short skirts or shorts.”

The code also details the width of shoulder straps on garments — capping them at 1.5 inches — and that shorts and skirts must reach mid-thigh, relying on a guideline that, when the student’s arms are resting at their side, the skirt will extend past their fingertips.

Additionally, while hats are allowed for outdoor use, the code prohibits hoodies unless worn as protection from the rain.

For an initial dress-code violation, students are sent to “the office” and asked to change clothes, according to the Adele Harrison dress code. At the point of a second violation, parents are contacted and detention issued.

Kelly and other students held a demonstration in protest of the dress code at the school in September.

Sonoma resident Celeste Winders, a former Sonoma Valley High School student, applauded Kelly’s efforts, saying she herself had been unfairly targeted by the dress code as a student in the 1980s. She said the dress code doesn’t appear to have changed much in 30 years.

“I was a student who developed early and would be dress coded not because I was dressed improperly, but because my body was considered inappropriate,” Winders told the trustees. “But there was nothing I could do about my body.”

Winders said these types of dress codes put the onus on the female-identifying students to change something about themselves in order to “not be distracting.”

“This is an old-school way of thinking,” she said.

A report issued last April by the National Women’s Law Center found that gender inequity in dress codes could be “dangerous,” leading to potential sexual harassment.

“Dress codes also communicate to students that girls are to be blamed for ‘distracting’ boys, instead of teaching boys to respect girls, correct their behavior and be more responsible,” the report, “Dress Coded,” concluded.

The trustees were in general agreement that school dress codes likely needed updating throughout the district.

“This issue impacts more than one site in our district,” said Trustee Melanie Blake. “Other schools may have their own words around their dress codes and that will impact the consequences of infractions — but we need to treat all our students with the same respect and the same consistency and opportunities.”

Trustees directed district staff to review the current dress codes, as well as their resulting disciplinary actions, and bring the matter back for more detailed discussion in February.

Email Jason Walsh at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.