Dysart Governing Board Workshop - August 11, 2007

Transcript taken from official Dysart Governing Board Audio Recording

Governing Board Policy JICA, JICA-R and Uniforms

Listen/Download the uniform discussion audio.

 

NOTE: Prior to this meeting, only Charles Otterman and Dr. Pletnick had any knowledge of the uniform “issue”. All other Board members were kept in the dark and not made of aware of this issue until August 11. It is safe to assume that Bridgette Otterman was also knowledgeable about this situation, considering she asks so few questions and raises so few concerns. This is all apparent by the opening remarks made by Charles Otterman.

 

Governing Board President Charles Otterman begins the discussion on school uniforms -

 

C. Otterman: Now we are going to move ahead to JICA. This really shouldn’t take that long and it’s mostly information and we’ll move on before we run out of time. Let me preface this for you. I started research on this policy and found many inconsistencies and discrepancies and basically had Gail (Pletnick) double check my research and she did and had Don Peters triple check, check and we got through the inconsistencies and discrepancies we need to take care of and she (Dr. Pletnick) is just going to just inform us what we need to do.

 

G. Pletnick: And well timing is everything and if you read this, you know, and hear the questions that come up and the first thing we know we are getting that kind of question (timing) and that question did come up obviously and I’m going to cut to the chase. Everything in this white book (white binder prepared by Dr. Plenick) is really the backup, but what I consider most important is my summary, so that it outlines what happened. And the bottom line of what happened is complete processes where started and it kind of fell by the wayside and I think assumptions were made that once you started a practice it just kind of just can go on that way wherever it is and so we have some gaps with JICA. Some of those gaps are included on my summary, the second page, the concerns that where raised with what we currently do with JICA.

 

One is that there really isn’t a uniform policy so there’s no opt-out provision which is a real concern and you see that now raised in here (white binder). Second one is financial considerations because we can’t, the Arizona School Board Association says you can’t impose requirements that could interfere with a student’s education. The last one is a relevance issue, which comes up here because basically, what are we basing our decision to do this on? And I know there’s lots of general research but this person (holds up email from parent) is asking, uh, show me the data, show me the proof is what it is. And then the last one is that in A.R.S. (Arizona Revised Statue) section 15-342. It says, “the governing board may…” and then there’s this laundry list of things that you (the Board) may do, like you may expel. You can ask me to do the work for that before I bring it to you, but I don’t …, you would … and in that same laundry list of things there’s number 22 “requires students to wear uniforms”.

 

So, the question is, should it be policy? If it’s to be regulated, how does it get regulated? And now let’s jump to the last page of my summary piece where we have that legal opinion which is there and basically you can read that. What we are doing is, in this opinion, in this lawyer’s opinion, is not illegal but, the bottom line, which he stated, and that’s what I fall back to is, the policy is probably inconsistent with requiring uniforms. (Dr. Pletnick reads from white binder) “I think that inconsistency posses a problem but I don’t think it means that existing dress code is invalid. In summary, I’ve seen nothing so fare to indicate that current practice (uniforms) is contrary to law, unauthorized or invalid. The only troubling thing I’ve seen is that current practice is probably inconsistent with the policy manual. The District ought to change the manual or change the practice.”

 

Which means, we do have an issue because one or the other has to be changed. So what would I recommend? Here’s what I would recommend. I think we say we are data driven and that we believe in collaboration and consensus building so I think we use those two pieces then and develop a process that would allow us to gather input from our parents and that this process could provide us with reliable, school generated data. So, the current policy from various school districts are included in there (white binder) on how they went about it, but what I am recommending is that we actually take this then back to and through our site-councils and have the parents give us their input on K-8 level on what they want to see in terms of a current uniform practice. And depending on the outcome of that, then we will have direction as to whether we need to change policy or change practice, which are the two things Mr. Peters (lawyer) is recommending that we look at. So, there’s a lot of pieces to read through and digest including …. and lots of sample things that I’ve included in there. All the rest prior to that is kind of the history about how we got to where we are today.

 

C. Pritchard: What does it mean to put something through a site council and have them…

 

G. Pletnick: Site-councils, by law, have to operate in every building and that is a group that has to be equally balanced in terms of both staff members and parents, and they are really, through state law, to be people who look at things like innovative ideas, curriculum, or education. Things that impact things in that school. So, my recommendation would be that we have a process in which we are to go through site council to explain what we have found here. And then, we will ask them to be the overseerers of a process that we could put in place in which I would recommend that we ask about from each and every family about our uniform practice. Is this something that you support? Is this something you do not support? After we know what that is, that site council then can be charged, if they’re saying “Yes, we want to continue that practice and reset those guidelines” then that site council would be involved in helping the District then to say this is what that needs to look like, including financial and opt-out. If they’re saying no, that tells us another direction that that building needs to go in.

 

C. Pritchard: So the site council would determine how this is addressed in each school?

 

G. Pletnick: No, it would actually, the data would determine that.

 

C. Otterman: They’re (site council) monitoring … like a civil rights organization just monitoring the process to make sure it’s done correctly.

 

C. Pritchard: So, you are going to come up with the means in which to get the data. It’s not like they’ll (site-council) say, ok this is what we do site-councils what do you want to do about it and they’ll (site-councils) decide what they’ll do?

 

C. Otterman: No. They (site-councils) are overseeing it to make sure … all constituents….

 

M. Planeta: Are they (site-councils) all going to come together at some point to the district?

 

G. Pletnick: What we would do is take each of those pieces and we would know. I mean we certainly would be able to tell you that each school, this is what each one of those schools is wanting.

 

C. Pritchard: So then, it sounds like the site council will basically get the information and at that point they’re being told that basically because of these inconsistencies, we’ve got to do something. Even if they say, you know, our school really decided we don’t want uniforms or they really decide we do want uniforms they still need, you’re asking them to get this information, do this vote, whatever?

 

G. Pletnick: Give us the data, because then we have to. One way or another, something has to change.

 

C. Pritchard: And what will determine, you will determine, how we get the data?

 

C. Otterman: The policy says before you do anything you have to have data. We have no data and our data would be greatly outdated. Our data is 1999 and you know the District’s changed so much. So we need a new data sample.

 

C. Pritchard: My suggestion, just as one person, would only be that because this could be such a, you get bits and pieces of information floating out there and this is a public meeting so eventually, the agenda is already out. I think it could be an area where a lot of anxiety can be, you know, built up and rumors could start going around and really get the community upset about something that really just sounds like something that we kind of have to do, we have to, and they will have a voice in it, but um, for that reason and the sake of continuing to buy uniforms or not. I think the quicker we do this, for everyone, the community, the families, the schools, the better.

 

G. Pletnick: And again, a plus would be, we have technology now, so it’s easy to do things, to get good solid information that’s not skewed through that. We do survey’s right now. There are ways, that, because now, we limit, when people are registering we’re also getting their email address so we could tag on a survey thing to their email addresses so families would only be able to vote once, but we would also then have to have site-councils, as a way for someone who does not have access to a computer at home to get their input registered as well. But, it’s a do-able thing. I mean, it’s not something that would take forever to put together.

 

B. Lipscomb: I’ve been down this road for some years now even before I came on the Governing Board, I was on the uniform committee in the district and you will have some pretty hard differences of opinion and this is one of these sticky wigets, this is like boundary changes where some people are just adamant against uniformity as far as uniforms protecting other people to say, hey look you saved boo-koo money because of the uniform and the spirit of the school. Everybody’s got their particular soap box their sitting on and to come up with a consensus, the consensus will be that you are not going to make everybody happy, whatever way this thing comes out. So we’re just going to have to deal with it everybody else will have to deal with it. As for communication again, I’m not sure if this is practical or not, but the thought flashed my mind that since we want to get everybody involved you know, at the school level, again, using our channel 99 to put it up there and simply say, discussion, uniform discussion or however you want to phrase it, get with site-based council whatever it happens to be and whatever, so that might be a way of getting the message out so again, the data that you put in, the greater the population of the data you get in, the more refined your result is going to be. 100 people are better than 5, so if you can get more of that population then there be a communication.

 

M. Planeta: School marquees is a good place to put it too.

 

C. Otterman: We gotta have 80…

 

G. Pletnick: No, I think we are going for ?? percent of the people, ah, participation do outreach to get 100% and that’s why it’s better to control it at the building level than at district, I mean to try to do this in one location for a district would be impossible to do. So each building would have to supervise it will be a consistent process, then you’ll have people who are kind of the monitors so no one can say, you know, did you do this the right way, no one can say, no one had the opportunity to those people at that building will be …

 

B. Lipscomb: This might be a question that will come to the Board as I see it right now, depending on the data, depending on the conversations, could it be that, as far as the Board is concerned, the District is concerned, if one school, the population of that school wants to opt-out of uniforms, they can do so and another school says no, we want uniforms, so, we would have that situation, I mean I can argue probably both points of that at this point of time.

 

C. Otterman: Right now I’m not going to be authoring, I did in 2005 in 2005 I authored a Board policy that would give the schools the power. It was voted down and I’m going to bring that back because I do believe the schools, each individual school, should have a decision through collaboration. So I’m going to bring that back.

 

M. Planeta: That seems like it would cause a lot of problems within the school district to do that. Parents in other schools where their kids are made to wear, you know, how come they don’t have to and we do?

 

C. Otterman: I’m going to bring it back just to talk about it. I think it’s a worthy conversation. But I’m going to, it was voted down before, when I brought it, I did bring it 2005, October 2005 that we would make it a site, a collaboration process, that each school can decide, but it was voted down. But I want to bring it back just to see what …

 

SIDE NOTE: Official Governing Board Minutes, Informational Agenda Item 3.1 – Oct. 05, 2005

Changes to Governing Board Policy JICA - Student Dress

Mr. Otterman provided the first reading of recommended changes to the board policy on student dress to indicate the Board will use a consensus building process to address the social and cultural goals of Dysart School communities related to dress guidelines. First Reading Mr. Lipscomb wanted clarification regarding the role of the Governing Board in authorizing changes to the uniform dress code and asked for a study session to focus on the process of developing handbooks to implement policy/practice.

 

SIDE NOTE: Official Governing Board Minutes, Informational Agenda Item 3.4 – Oct. 26, 2005

The Governing Board discussed the subject policy and Mr. Lipscomb asked that the policy be changed to require that changes to the dress/uniform code be brought to the Board for action. Mr. Otterman recommends the policy remain a broad/general policy; preferring instead that administration seek collaboration with the public and staff in implementing Governing Board policy. Mr. Lipscomb agreed that collaboration with the public and staff is an important part of the process. In addition, Mr. Lipscomb expressed a concern that “after” everyone has collaborated and recommendations for change are made, the Board should take formal action at a Governing Board meeting because the issue directly impacts the parents and other interested stakeholders the board members represent.   ** Both of these were information items only, not action items. These agenda items were NOT voted on **

SIDE NOTE: Official Governing Board Minutes, Action Agenda Item 4.1 – Nov. 16, 2005

Changes to Governing Board Policy JICA - Student Dress

After discussion, a motion by Otterman/Bass was entered to adopt recommended changes to Governing Board Policy JICA Student Dress. Final Reading. Mr. Lipscomb stated he is in favor of revising the policy to add the use of a consensus building process related to dress guidelines; however, he did not favor deletion of the other statements as shown. In addition, he would like a provision added that would require administration to submit dress code changes to the Governing Board for action. Mr. Otterman’s typed statement indicated he supports governance through a collaborative consensus building process that empowers the regulations and supervision of the Governing Board visions, goals and objectives to the individuals hired by the Board. MOTION FAILS 2 - YES 2 - NO

 

B. Lipscomb: I got my folder on that sucker.

 

G. Pletnick: And in here (white binder), I put some samples from other places of how they went about doing that because I don’t think we want to re-invent the wheel either if there is a good process in place, then we will, and these are from local Arizona schools that have done this…

 

M. Planeta: How do you feel about it as our Superintendent?

 

G. Pletnick: Here’s what I believe. The people who are most impacted by this are the kids, the parents, the families themselves in that buildling. You can go through research left and right and find reasons for and reasons against and I’m telling you that I cannot give, and I am very passionate person as you all know, I cannot give you anything right now, that will tell you that in this district, we must do this for this reason, because I can’t. We don’t have that data. So, I cannot say to you this is making a difference in kids every day, I can’t tell you that because I don’t have the data to tell you that. So what do you do? You go back to then, if I can’t give you data how it impacts academics or safety or any of those types of things, what we can do is get data on how this impacts parents connection with the school or parents feelings about this, because that’s the next best thing. That community thing. Because I can’t give you data on anything else, so, if it is a choice of that parent group, and at a minimum 75%-80% of the parents have to agree to this and you have to have opt-out and you have to have financial assistance. If that’s the case, then it’s not an issue for that particular school. If that’s what makes them operate more effectively or efficiently, then they can, how can they prove that it make them more effective and more efficient, because they have 80% of their parents say they want that. That’s the only data I can give you.

 

C. Otterman: The policy says academics and safety. It doesn’t say what parents wish. So we got to prove that it makes a difference in academic achievement or makes it more safe.

 

G. Pletnick and C. Otterman talk over each other….

 

C. Otterman: As it stands right now, we have to have data. As it stands right now, there is no data. Unless we change a policy we really don’t need to look at it because there is no data in America that says uniforms change safety or academic achievement. It’s a placebo.

 

B. Lipscomb: Well no, there’s opinions.

 

C. Otterman: No, but I’m saying data.

 

B. Lipscomb: I may differ with you a little bit because some of my research over the years when this was really flaring up, I did my Google stuff and went in there and got a stack of stuff. This way, that way, that way and this way on the thing and there were some things that went up to Congress or something I think talking about the First Amendment thing and the uniform thing and they were trying to say, well this school that was using uniforms their disciplinary problems went down. When you want to look at the data, I think there is data out there (C. Otterman interrupts: “Look Again”). My point is that there’s data that makes an argument this way, there’s data that makes an argument that way so they still bump heads in the middle. I can get you data that supports uniforms. I can get you data that doesn’t support.

 

C. Otterman: Here’s the data you want to look for and there’s none out there. That school uniforms correlate to this. There’s no data because of all the things you (Lipscomb) talk about. There no data that says at all, anywhere. See in 1999 and 2000, nobody had school uniforms. It takes 5-10 years to get current data. We’re at that point right now. We’re at the point where we can actually say, what does data show. So, what it does show and they’ve come out and said is, we can’t separate socio-economics. We cannot separate if they get breakfast in the morning. We cannot separate anything. Therefore, since we cannot do that, there is no data to support. There may be another factor. So you won’t get data out there.

 

G. Pletnick: Here’s what I think needs to drive our district. It’s our own data from Dysart. That’s what I keep going down to because we don’t have that. I included in here (white binder) some pieces from Memphis and Roosevelt but that was different population and there may be other needs there so I provide that for you but what I’m sharing with you is, it’s relevant to Dysart is what I was hoping for and I’m telling you I can’t give that to you and I look because our discipline numbers are getting better but we haven’t changed that method but why, because we changed the, and I can’t prove that, but I would say, it’s associated with changes we’ve made in our discipline matrix but there are other factors, but I can’t give you what this parent (holds up letter from parent) …?

 

M. Planeta: Can I give you an opinion instead of data? Why don’t we do away with them at the elementary level and implement them in the high school (laughter and side discussion ensues).

 

C. Otterman: The ones that need it don’t have it.

 

C. Pritchard: Like you (Lipscomb) said, there are lots of arguments for and lots of arguments against and that will always be the case, so if we were to do something, like what you are planning on asking the district or each school to do, bottom line will be, even if, like you said, it’s a hot topic, lot of people come to the Board meetings, the bottom line will be, you know what, your individual school had this vote, this poll or whatever. This is the voice of your school. You can’t do it district wide, it would be nice because it would be cleaner, but at least this way, I feel like you would be addressing those schools or those areas where people really feel strongly. This is why we really need uniforms or it is a financial issue or whatever. They will still have all their unique issues that exist in their particular school, will be voiced by the people, the parents that go there.

 

M. Planeta: My kids were involved when we switched, they were wearing dresses and … and then we went to uniforms. They didn’t like them. I liked them. I thought it looked nice. I never really saw any difference in anything, either way. They get to high school and they’re wearing their regular clothes anyway. So I didn’t really see any difference myself. I thought it looked nicer, myself. As far as the way kids acted or anything like that, I don’t think it make any difference at all.

 

B. Lipscomb: Again, some of the material, you can read material this way or that way. Some of the material that I have read that supports uniforms at the lower levels or at the middle levels is that fact that it reduces the peer pressure because if you have some demographics there and we’ve had that in the past from the socio-economic people that weren’t earning the income that would support buying clothes all the time, whatever else. A lot of them, the kids were coming to school with hand-me-downs and you have the newer socio-economic class that was building up in Surprise and now they are going to the same school because of the boundaries and stuff like that. So now they are sitting in school and the concern that I have is that I want those students in that classroom focusing on that teacher in front of the classroom, not on the pair of Reeboks or the other thing next to them so their attention is divided and not focused. So, that’s one of the principle arguments for uniforms is just that…

 

C. Pritchard: Can I ask you a question on that before you go to the next thing? My response to that would be that in the Jr. High level, middle level learner piece, your having those children in uniforms and then all of a sudden, a summer goes by, just three short months, and boom, they’re thrown to the wolves. I mean, they are not even prepared, we’re not even working with them. It’s like nope, everyone’s the same and that’s all that’s in their head and then they go out into the real world and realize, wow, I don’t wear guess jeans. I feel it’s almost like a culture shock and that would almost be more devastating to them to just have to deal with it, especially at that age.

 

M. Planeta: What about Jr. High, if you only went to sixth grade and then…?

 

C. Pritchard: Well, they are in the same building, so how would you tell the children in fifth grade you have to wear uniforms …

 

M. Planeta: Well, I think I would be easier to identify who the Jr. High kids are.

 

(Laughter)

M. Planeta: One of the problems we did have was that each school had a certain color at first then we got into hyper growth and you had uniforms this year for that school then you’re moved to this school and it’s a different color uniform and they weren’t able to pass them on. But then we changed that so you could wear …

 

B. Lipscomb: The other way to resolve that thing is that you have a neutral color that you can wear at any school, call it white, a white polo shirt, or the school color. So if you’re changing boundaries or whatever else, it may not be such a boundary shock. But all this stuff, once you put it all on, will there be any one perfect answer to this, probably not, we may not be able to obtain the empirical right answer for this one here just because all this stuff is subjective, so much is opinionated right now and then if you say one school complies with the uniform and one does not they have the option to opt out. Will there be a concern when we change principals at that school? Is there going to be a district thing, or is the building principal responsibility?

 

G. Pletnick: I think that once we put the process in place, you always, no matter what happens in that building, you have to use the same process. If they decide they want to utilize uniforms, you cannot change that unless you get 75%-80% of people saying they want …

 

M. Planeta: Would that be a yearly thing?

 

G. Pletnick: No, unless there was that group raising it to that level and saying we want to bring this back to a vote, but to be able to do that then, you would have to have those people there, you have to have X number of people. You would have to have guidelines, some really strict guidelines with numbers. It is a subject thing that we’re trying to make it as objective as possible through this input process so again, those numbers would drive those decisions and that is really what it would be based on. And I can’t say what would or will come out. What would we still advocate should a school chose to do away with uniforms, I say Mr. Lipscomb, going back to saying just what you said, it would ultimately be two buildings both those buildings are going to have the same basic choices, so that we don’t have, when you go across …

 

C. Pritchard: I would agree. It looks sloppy with all these different colors and kids coming to school with their light blue shirts that they’re stained and I agree. White and khaki, or something neutral for everybody, because yeah, it just looks sloppy and it doesn’t look like a uniform district.

 

C. Otterman: Right now, it’s district policy. There is no individual school policy.

 

G. Pletnick: Well, there is a district practice. There is no district policy.

 

C. Otterman: But I want to make it clear. We talk about individual schools that doesn’t exist right now. The only option we have right now is at this point, everybody does it (uniforms) or no one does it. So I want to make it clear. It can be confusing that we talk about one school doing it. It’s not in our Board policy, so right now, it’s district policy. So, we may not have an option for each school to do this.

 

C. Pritchard: So when will the parents be told what’s going to happen so they can plan on what they are going to do?

 

G. Pletnick: What Mr. Otterman has just pointed out, What I’m proposing technically can’t be proposed because it’s an all or nothing type thing the way the policy is written. The first thing that we would want to do is indicate that we want input from the buildings (schools) on choices in this particular situation. When I say choices, I mean you want them to have an option for input in JICA.

 

M. Planeta: Would that be next semester because school starts on Monday. Are we talking next year?

 

C. Otterman: We could make a decision on this, I would say, by the middle of September, correct?

 

G. Pletnick: Then, what we could do is again, then, phase in, phase out type of thing, depending on what each building wants to do.

 

C. Otterman: Whatever the policy becomes, immediately. We don’t have a yearly process. If it’s September, whatever we decide, that starts the next day, the policy. So, you’ve got to be ready to, BOOM, whichever way we’re going to go.

 

B. Lipscomb: What Mike was just saying, the timing is not perfect on this one because, sadly to say, everybody’s at Walmart and Target right now buying uniforms all over the place and also for them to learn that we might be changing uniforms or the opposite, why right now?

 

M. Planeta: The public is going to say why are they doing this now. That’s my concern.

 

C. Otterman: Because we just discovered it, I mean I just discovered it, I wish I had discovered it long. It just I happened to discover it during the middle of summer. Once we’re not in compliance, we’re not in compliance so we’ve got to do something about it. It’s not a public issue. What we’re doing here is not even a public issue. We’re not in compliance with Board policy. We could be sued. All kind of things could happen because any parent might want to sue…

 

B. Otterman: That’s what I was going to say with the email (from parent) that you received if we don’t have data to respond to this parent, what is the parent’s legal rights? Can they, you know …

 

C. Otterman: This has to be done quick.

 

C. Pritchard: Can’t we do this simultaneously?

 

G. Pletnick: Which is why we’re going to resolve this by doing whatever. By saying that we have a plan to address this and this is what our plan is…

 

C. Pritchard: But we could do that before the policy is changed. We can be doing this input phase even … (interrupted)

 

C. Otterman: We may not even change board policy and we just go ahead and do the input phase.

 

M. Planeta: I guess where I’m confused though is if we allow every school .. you know, one school does and another one doesn’t and the parent says I don’t want my kid wearing a uniform even though the majority ruled.

 

G. Pletnick: Basically, what this (white binder?) is saying is that an opt out is an important thing if you ..

 

B. Otterman: Open enrollment to another school.

 

C. Otterman: We can have the uniform but you’re basically telling parents they don’t have to wear them. I don’t know why we even want to fool with it, the uniforms because at the end of the day it’s going to be so water down. You have an opt-out clause. That any kid that don’t want to wear it don’t have to.

 

C. Pritchard: Oh really? It’s going to be just like that?

 

C. Otterman: Yeah.

 

G. Pletnick: If you look in here (white binder), what I did, I pulled out, this is actually from the Department of Education and basically it’s telling you what you should have if you a uniform policy and they are indicating that you need to have opt-out, protect students other rights to expression and religious rights, that’s all, so that’s why you have opt-out.

 

M. Planeta: It might give parents some leverage, if you don’t knock if off, you’re wearing a uniform to school.

 

(laughter and talking)

 

B. Lipscomb: Well correct me if I’m wrong then, whatever we come up with here, if we go to a uniform it can’t be a mandatory requirement. If you have the opt-out, so therefore it’s an option.

 

C. Otterman: No it can’t.

 

C. Pritchard: It’s like a non-issue.

 

C. Otterman: That’s what I’ve been saying to change the policy and just get rid of it.

C. Pritchard: All the other districts around us don’t have uniforms. I mean we’re the only ones on this side of town that does.

 

* Everyone talking at once

 

C. Otterman: The way the policy’s written now, listen, we can do away with the school uniforms just by her (Pletnick) giving an edict because she can do that. We don’t have to vote on it. We don’t have to do anything. Our Board Policy does not support uniforms. Our Board policy actually is not a uniform policy. It’s a dress code policy. So, if we want to make it simple and clean and get this right before school would start, all she (Pletnick) has to do is communicate what we found out, what we’re doing, why we’re doing it. We don’t have to opt-out and play all these games and she just said we’re going to follow Board Policy.

 

M. Planeta: That seems like the easiest thing to do.

 

C. Pritchard: I agree.

 

C. Otterman: Then it’s a done deal? It’s her (Pletnick’s) job. At this point, it’s her responsibility anyway. We’re only concerned with changing policy, that’s all. So, we’re not really concerned about changing policy. I like the policy. I personally like what we have so I would say leave that, that it’s a dress code policy. Just start enforcing it so the people that want to change it, they can start telling us. The high school goes by our policy.

 

G. Pletnick: Honestly, all schools goes by that policy (dress code). That policy about spaghetti straps. But obviously, it doesn’t matter at that age because obviously there are other restrictions on it, you’re not going to see the spaghetti straps. So, every school in this district, preschool through 12, does follow JICA in terms of, we have dress code and regulation dress code and so that remains the same. That’s why we’re talking about this because that’s all we have right now, policy.

 

M. Planeta: Who brought this forward anyway in the first place, the uniform, was it the Board? Was it …

 

B. Lipscomb: It started in 1998 with Kingswood.

 

C. Otterman: We can’t give you (Pletnick) direction. We can’t give you, you know, the Board can talk. I would be the first one, I would like to leave the policy alone and see her (Pletnick) doing what’s she’s doing. Bridget, what would you like?

B. Otterman: Yeah, I say go with policy and have the dress code policy the way it’s written.

 

C. Pritchard: I agree.

 

M. Planeta: Second.

 

C. Otterman: We don’t have to do survey’s or anything. You got a few days and you can say that people…

 

B. Lipscomb: Just a protocol here or whatever you want to call it type thing, parliamentary thing. Did we just make a vote on something??

 

C. Pritchard: No.

 

C. Otterman: No, no. We just made suggestions which we can do.

 

B. Lipscomb: You know where I’m coming from. I just don’t want to do down a non-agenda item…

 

C. Otterman: No, no. You know, what’s your opinion, what’s your suggestions.

 

G. Pletnick: You know, just your input.

 

C. Pritchard: So, what is the bottom line? This is someone who at 12:00 is taking her daughter school shopping.

 

* Laughter

 

C. Pritchard: No pressure.

 

C. Otterman: Here’s the bottom line, we cannot get to superintendent evaluation tools.

 

Charles Otterman ends discussion on uniforms and dress code at this point.

 

Workshop wraps up and comes to an end.

 

Uniform discussion begins at 3:24:10 and ends at 3:56:20 on official meeting audio recording.