With youngsters, I believe everything that is good — manners, respect, self-esteem and other qualities — starts in the home. Unfortunately, many of today’s kids don’t have parents or others at home to show them the way.

In a lot of cases in homes that have two parents, they are too busy — some out of necessity and others out of selfishness or lack of responsibility — to keep an eye on their kids. Kids living in homes with one or no parents face a tougher hill to climb.

I was thinking about kids and parents while reading a story concerning the Sharon City School District and its proposed dress code for teachers and other staff members, and its development of a more stringent set of rules for the way students dress.

When I was in school, and I mean all the way until the day I walked across the stage at Farrell High’s E.J. McCluskey Gymnasium to receive my diploma, my dress code was “written” and enforced by my parents. Heck, my grandfather got to add his two cents worth in any conversation about dress as well.

That’s a major component in the appearance of our kids that’s missing today, and one of the challenges facing school districts and administrators around the country. Students dressed questionably end up at the front doors of our schools. If my parents didn’t like the way I was dressed, I never made it to my own front door, let alone Farrell High’s.

Opponents of guidelines for dress cite increased costs for clothing as one of the reasons that they disagree. I grew up in a house of average means, at best, and never had some of the higher-end clothing worn by others who were more affluent. But that didn’t mean that I was dressed shabbily. Especially today, kids can spend a lot of money on clothes and look pretty bad. The other side of that coin is true as well.

While Sharon and others may view dress codes as necessities considering the times, one of the dangers is that such guidelines could become more of a deterrent to the educational process. All one needs to do is look to our nearby neighbors of the Warren City School District.

School directors were ahead of the curve last year when they adopted a more stringent dress code. Two of the more controversial rules banned the wearing of blue jeans and of multi-colored tops. Guess what? After one school year, the board is planning to relax its rules for the 2008-09 school year.

While you may laugh and accuse the directors of backing down, it turned out that the dress code was more of a hindrance than help. Because students no longer are stopped at their own front door, or because some kids dress like their parents, teachers wrote more than 600 warnings for dress code violations, resulting in Saturday detentions for them. Here’s the best part. Of the students, 326 of them were suspended from school for skipping the Saturday detention, according to a story Sunday in the Warren Tribune Chronicle.

In that story, Schools Superintendent Kathryn Hellweg said that the district no longer wanted the dress code to interfere with the primary mission of teachers and administrators — providing them an education. You can’t teach them if they aren’t there.

According to the story, blue jeans again will be allowed, as will multi-colored tops, but other standards such as length of skirts and shorts, clothing that reveals too much of the body, pants that fall below the waist, and others will continue.

It’s a shame that school districts have to resort to dress codes, but because they do, how they’re enforced becomes of vital importance. Sharon Schools Superintendent John Sarandrea was principal at New Castle High School before assuming the reins at Sharon last school year. New Castle has a strict dress code, one that matches and maybe exceeds the one that Warren directors are relaxing. Since Sarandrea has broad experience in dealing with a strict code at the high school level, his insight will be valuable as Sharon moves toward more stringent standards.

I know we’re in much different times than 40 years ago, but I can’t help but think of my mom, dad and grandfather, and what they would say, every time I see a kid dressed in pajamas or other sleepwear in grocery stores, malls, and other public places.

Talk about never getting to the front door ...



Jim Raykie is the editor and writes this column on Mondays. His e-mail is jraykie@sharonherald.com