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The Glynn County Board of Education heard a proposed update Tuesday to the school district’s dress code policy.

The change is intended to respond to staff feedback in schools and to make the dress code more enforceable. The policy revision will lay on the table for 30 days and be voted on at the school board’s August meeting.

The changes for consideration include the allowance of running shorts with tights to be worn for appropriate coverage and the barring of bedroom slippers. Tops and shirts must not extend below shorts and skirts. Shirt straps must be two adult fingers wide rather than three and must cover both shoulders. And staff and administration are to determine whether the code is being followed on a case by case basis.

The draft policy changes were reviewed by students, staff and members of the community engagement committee, said Senetra Haywood, director of student services.

“We tried to condense it and make it more responsive to the trends of things that are happening now and make sure we had something that we could actually enforce at the school level,” she said.

School board member Mike Hulsey said he supports the effort to maintain an enforceable dress code policy but he’s frustrated by how rarely the code seems to be upheld in schools.

“If you’re not going to enforce it you’re wasting your time,” he said.

During the past two years, as the district adjusted to COVID-19 policies and challenges, some parts of the dress code policy were relaxed to keep students coming to school, said Scott Spence, superintendent.

But as the district continues transitioning back to the ways it operated before the pandemic, he said enforcement of the dress code must fully return.

“In the last two years, we have struggled to keep kids coming to school and they wanted to stay home because of COVID and all of that,” Spence said. “We did everything we could, and if it meant relaxing things we tried to get them in school … But now it’s time to go back to the basics.”

In other business, the school board was presented with a divisive concepts policy that needs to be approved before Aug. 1 to adhere to state law. To approve the policy on time, the board plans to waive its typical practice of keeping a policy change on the table for 30 days after it’s proposed before voting.

The policy stems from House Bill 1084, the state’s “Protect Students First Act.”

The law prohibits school boards and administrators from discriminating based on race and aims to protect students from lessons “that make them feel guilty about their race,” said Tracolya Green, assistant superintendent.

“Divisive concepts” include the concept that one race is inherently superior to another race, that the United States of America is fundamentally racist, that an individual’s moral character is inherently determined by his or her race as well as other forms of race scapegoating or race stereotyping, according to the proposed policy.

The state legislature approved House Bill 1084 this year amid a national discussion about critical race theory and a mostly Republican led push to ban the teaching of certain racial concepts that some say are divisive.

The policy outlines what will be the school district’s complaint resolution process, another state requirement.

“Any complainant can actually appeal directly to the state board for this particular policy or house bill, and then there are obviously some things that we will then have to present in the event that they do so,” Green said.

The board is set to vote on the policy July 26.

The school board went into executive session at the end of its work session and did not return for its regular meeting, scheduled to begin immediately afterward, before The News’ deadline.

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