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New Dress Code Kicks Off At Park Elementary

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By DOUG CARMAN

Highlands Today

Published: August 15, 2008

AVON PARK - There will be plenty of teachers, several books, all the students... well, still no dirty looks, as they will all have to dress up at Park Elementary School this year.

Park will become the second public school in Highlands County to have a dress code policy that will ban most designs and allow only certain colors to be worn, a year after Woodlawn Elementary put in a policy of its own.

According to Park Elementary School's Web page, students will have to wear a sleeved shirt that is red, white, black or navy blue. Unless it's an optional Park Elementary logo, your kids can't wear shirts with designs or advertisements on it, so save the Sponge Bob shirt for the weekend at the park.

Shorts, pants, skorts, jeans and capris need to be khaki, navy blue or black, and they need to "fit properly and not sag below the waist." Sneakers and tennis shoes with enclosed backs are good. Flip-flops are not.

School Principal Brenda Longshore said she and several parents have vouched for this new dress code since the start of the 2007-2008 school year. She studied the more-stringent dress code used for all of the elementary schools in Polk County, which also requires students to tuck their shirts in and calls for belts on all pants with belt loops.

"I had some parents come in last summer interested in moving in that direction," she said, even though the school decided on a more relaxed dress code.

A student's parents can call the school and ask to opt out of the dress code requirements. By the end of July, only one parent had done so, Longshore said, and that was because the parent complained that she ended up buying a whole wardrobe for her incoming kindergartener before she was aware of the requirements.

If the kids come to school out of uniform, Longshore said she will send letters and then make phone calls to their parents asking for them to speak with the school administration about the problems their children are having with the dress code.
Longshore said she did not plan to give the students detentions, Saturday schools or any disciplinary action of that sort to students not following the uniform policy.

"There will not be any out-of-school time," she said. "We certainly don't want to take children out of school."

For more information on the dress code, call the school at 452-4373.

Doug Carman can be reached at 386-5838 or dcarman@highlandstoday.com

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