School Dress Code: No Camo

[Texsox]

FATIGUE FLAP: LHS student sent home for wearing camouflage outfit

By HILLARY CHABOT, Sun Staff

Lowell Sun

 

LOWELL -- Shilo Lewis just wanted to blend in with the crowd.

 

She'd seen camouflage clothing in fashion magazines, on the streets of the city, even in Lowell High School.

 

But a head-to-toe camouflage ensemble got the high-school junior sent home from school yesterday.

 

“They took one look at me and said, ‘You have to get picked up,' “ Lewis said about school officials.

 

Lewis, 16, was wearing a camouflage bandana holding her waist-length hair in a ponytail, a camouflage jacket over a camouflage T-shirt, and a pair of camouflage pants.

 

“I think she looks great,” said her mother, Bette Lewis, who bought her the outfit. “She always looks nice. She always matches everything.”

 

Lowell High Headmaster Bill Samaras said military gear is associated with some local gangs, and could disrupt students' safety and their learning environment.

 

“This has nothing to do with the military. We allow Reserve Officer Training Corps to wear military gear because they wear it in a respectful manner. It's the gang relation. If it's controversial or if it has gang associations, we won't have it,” Samaras said.

 

The policy is one of many dress-code regulations meant to keep kids focused on school. Wilmington, Tewksbury, Westford and Chelmsford all have dress codes that ban clothing like midriff-baring tops, low-cut sweaters, and T-shirts promoting drugs or alcohol.

 

“We try to promote clothing that's in good taste, something that's appropriate for a school setting,” said Chelmsford High School Principal Allen Thomas. “Usually things get worse in the spring with the warmer weather. We don't allow bare midriffs, but most of the time if they pull their top down or their bottom up they look all right. We jokingly talk about ‘closing the gap.' “

 

Bette Lewis argued that her daughter's clothing wasn't revealing or vulgar, and said she's watched several other girls in the school walk around with camouflage on.

 

“They're all wearing it,” she said.

 

Director of Curriculum Wendy Jack said two other students were called to the office because they were wearing camouflage yesterday.

 

“If she just had a jacket, or if she just had a T-shirt, we would ask her to put the jacket away or cover the shirt. We don't want to send students home. But she was covered head to foot,” Jack said.

 

Jack said the school applies the policy to everyone, but admitted some camouflaged students meld into the scenery.

 

“We might not catch everyone, just like police don't always catch every speeding driver on the highway,” Jack said. “She was covered, but it was military dress, and we've decided at the school that isn't allowed.”

 

Police Chief Edward Davis confirmed that many different gangs wear camouflage as a reflection of current styles in movies and on television.

 

Phill Rodrigues, 14, a Lowell High freshman, said he was given a detention for wearing camouflage pants on one of his first days of school.

 

“They said, ‘If you wear camouflage again, you'll be suspended,' “ Rodrigues said. “I don't know of any gangs that wear camouflage. I know some wear red or blue.”

 

The Sun contacted several school districts outside of Lowell, and none has a direct ban on camouflage. But Wilmington High Principal Eric Tracy said what is banned depends heavily on the situation.

 

“One of the things you have to consider is perspective. Each school is different,” Tracy said.

 

Many articles of clothing that aren't in the student handbook can be banned based on new fashions and fads, Tracy said. Recently, very short skirts became popular, and those had to be banned.

 

Bette Lewis, who traveled to Salem, N.H., to find the camouflage pants to match with her daughter's outfit, brought her daughter out for steak at the Four Sisters Owl Diner yesterday after she picked her up from school.

 

She said she might call School Committee members about the policy.

 

“I don't think it's right,” Bette Lewis said. “If she was a troublemaker or talking back, that would be one thing, but she's always dressed from head to toe matching and I've always encouraged it.”

 

Hillary Chabot's e-mail address is [email protected].

[Middle Buffalo]

The administration is just trying to keep the kids from sneaking in and out of class unseen. I can't say that I blame them.

[Rex Kickass]

Cause I always accidentally bump into the people wearing camo at the mall.

[southsider2k5]

Cause I always accidentally bump into the people wearing camo at the mall.

 

"accidently" sure, right... :headshake

 

[Rex Kickass]

You didn't see nothing. You can't prove nothing.