Higley Unified School District board splits over whether students can show midriffs

After a heated debate, the Higley Unified School District governing board failed to update the district's two-decade-old dress code policy during a meeting Wednesday, with board members unable to agree on whether students should be allowed to expose their midriffs.

The board split was 2-2, and its fifth member declined to cast a deciding vote on the proposal before them. Ultimately, the board voted 5-0 to table the agenda item.

"We've asked that dress code to be addressed for some time, and so it's finally here," said board member Kristina Reese, who held the deciding vote. "But I think we need to get it right."

The district's current dress code policy was approved in 2001 and was due for review, according to district spokesperson Teresa Joseph. It includes prohibiting student attire that "interferes with or disrupts the educational environment or educational objectives" or "immodestly exposes the chest, abdomen, midriff, genital area or buttocks."

The new policy brought before the board during a May meeting was drafted by the Arizona Risk Retention Trust, which creates model policies for school districts across the state.

During the May meeting, board member Amanda Wade and President Tiffany Shultz voiced concerns about the proposed policy.

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Wade said the line in the policy that prohibited students from exposing "midriffs, undergarments or undergarment areas" disproportionately impacts students who wear bras or bra straps.

Shultz said prohibiting exposure of midriffs and undergarments makes girls feel bad about their bodies by telling them they need to cover up "because of the way it might make someone else feel."

"That is wrong," Shultz said. "In 2023, we shouldn't be doing that." Right now, she added, crop tops are in style. It's difficult to find girls' shirts that extend below the top of pants, she said.

At the May meeting, Reese expressed concerns about inconsistent enforcement, saying that a midriff prohibition would likely be disproportionately enforced against girls.

"You notice your football players — when they're wearing their football shirts, jerseys, game days — their bellies are exposed. … Are they going to be more apt to address a male like that?" Reese said. "Probably not."

Board fails to approve new policy, members disagree over midriff exposure

The Arizona Risk Retention Trust and district leaders took the board's feedback from the May 10 meeting to create a revised approach to present to the board for a vote during its Aug. 9 meeting.

The revised policy included language that prohibited attire when it "significantly interferes with the District's ability to maintain order." The revision also required clothing to cover all private body parts and not be see-through. Though undergarments could not be worn as clothing, undergarment waistbands or straps "incidentally visible under clothing" were permitted.

The revision also removed the line that prohibited the exposure of students' midriffs.

Board members Anna Van Hoek and Michelle Anderson disagreed with the proposed changes to the policy, saying a stricter dress code than the one proposed is necessary to teach self-respect.

"Kids shouldn't be allowed to wear tops that reveal their stomachs all the way to their chest; their butt cheeks hanging out and their chest, bras or underwear being exposed," said Van Hoek, who in July filed a motion alongside Arizona Women of Action, a conservative political action committee, to defend an Arizona law that prohibits transgender girls from playing on girls' school sports teams. Arizona Women of Action has been posting on social media encouraging people to contact the Higley Unified board in support of a stricter dress code.

Van Hoek also argued that having a strictly enforced school dress code policy makes it easier for parents to "be able to tell their kids that they can't wear something to school."

Wade, in response, said she doesn't think it's fair to put schools in the position of having to help someone parent because they're "having a hard time creating established boundaries" at home. The board represents a community of differing moral standards, and "your moral standards may differ than somebody else's moral standards," she added.

Anderson said she didn't support the removal of wording from the district's 2001 policy that prohibited the exposure of midriffs, chests and buttocks. Teachers she's spoken with "don't want to see exposed skin on either males or females," she said.

A stricter dress code than the one proposed is necessary to teach students "self-respect, self-control and discipline," Anderson said.

Board members also disagreed over whether a stricter dress code was necessary to prepare students for college and careers. Van Hoek and Anderson argued that it was. Shultz, though, wondered, "What profession are we trying to fit them into with the dress?"

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"I don't understand why we're regulating so strictly for profession and how that matters," Shultz said, citing examples of professions like comic bookstore owner, model and business owner that might allow for a wide range of dress. Van Hoek responded that college- and career-ready kids need to learn how to have self-respect, and "that doesn't include showing off their body parts."

Anderson also said the board needed to ensure children weren't distracted from academics, not only by "attraction" but also by popularity contests and pressure to fit into trends. Van Hoek agreed.

Other people being uncomfortable or distracted is not the responsibility of the individual wearing the clothing, Wade said. She said that under the existing dress code, boys and girls wear clothing with their midriffs exposed, which is hard to "consistently enforce." The dress code is rarely enforced anyway because "we live in Arizona, and it is hot," she said.

At the end of the discussion, Anderson made a motion to add language to the proposed policy that would require clothing to "cover the entire midriff with material that covers the front, back and sides," which Van Hoek seconded.

Reese, who acknowledged that she thought the district's 2001 policy was too strict, said she was uncomfortable approving the proposed policy or the amendment proposed by Anderson, so the vote would end up being 2-2.

President: Current policy 'archaic,' other districts have updated policies

Shultz, the board president, said she is concerned that other districts have updated their policies and Higley hasn't kept up.

"One of the things that concerns me ... is what other districts have done and the policies they've put in place and Higley being laughed at, in a sense, that we have such an archaic policy" that targets women, she said at the August meeting.

In May, Schultz said that language prohibiting midriff exposure leads to teachers unnecessarily policing female students’ apparel.

"There shouldn't be a time when teachers need to make sure the top meets the jeans or looking ... to make sure that you're not showing a teeny bit of your stomach," Shultz said at the May meeting. "It is more of a waste of time ... for a teacher to point out a woman, specifically ... showing an inch of their stomach."

"We do have bra straps, we do have stomachs," she said.

Ten districts across the state have adopted variations of the Arizona Risk Retention Trust's model student attire policy, Higley Unified's legal counsel Jennifer MacLennan told the board at the Aug. 9 meeting.

Nearby East Valley districts have various requirements. Mesa Public Schools' policy states that clothing must "cover the entire midriff, with material that covers the front, back and sides," according to its website.

In May, Gilbert Public Schools updated its dress code policy to remove requirements that clothing must cover the entire midriff and changed language that said clothing "must cover a student's undergarments, chest, buttocks and torso" to "clothing must cover all private body parts and must not be see through." Queen Creek Unified School District's policy prohibits the exposure of "undergarments, or undergarment areas," but does not have language that prohibits midriff exposure, according to the Arizona Risk Retention Trust's website.

While the Higley Unified governing board's debate centered around whether students should be prohibited from exposing their midriffs, the Aug. 9 proposed policy also added several other new provisions, including ones that state the district doesn't discriminate against students on the basis of religious expression and doesn't prohibit any student who is an enrolled member of a federally recognized Indian tribe from wearing traditional tribal regalia at graduation.

School began for Higley Unified's approximately 13,500 students on July 24. Once the board approves a new policy, district staff will create specific regulations. The districtwide dress code has some variations and nuances, depending on the school, that are decided by staff — the district's traditional school requires uniforms, for example.

Madeleine Parrish covers K-12 education. Reach her at mparrish@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @maddieparrish61.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Higley Unified School District splits over student dress code