Dress Code

Student attire and grooming must permit the student to participate in learning without posing a risk to the health or safety of any student or school district personnel. The responsibility for the dress and grooming of a student rests primarily with the student and his or her parents or guardians. Parents or guardians are responsible for ensuring student compliance with the school dress code. Students are responsible for complying with the dress code during school hours and school activities.

a) Students must wear clothing including both a shirt with pants or skirt, or the equivalent (for example, dresses, leggings, or shorts) and shoes, (for example, sneakers, sandals, or flip-flops)

b) Clothing must completely cover the chest, back, buttocks, and torso

c) Clothing must cover undergarments

d) Clothing must not be see-through.

e) Clothing may not depict, advertise or advocate the use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or other controlled substances.

f) Clothing may not use or depict hate speech targeting groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation or any other protected classification.

g) Clothing must be suitable for all scheduled classroom activities including physical education, science labs, shop classes, field trips and other activities where unique hazards or specialized attire or safety gear is required.

h) Hats and other headwear must allow the face to be visible to staff. Masks are not allowed.

i) Students may not wear clothing and accessories that feature offensive images or language including profanity, hate speech, pornography, vulgarities, or defamatory language.

j) Gang-Related Apparel - Attire or grooming depicting or advocating violence, criminal activity, gang-related activity including attire, logos, or colors identified by VCSD, LASD, or LAPD as gang-affiliated are prohibited.

Enforcement

To equitably enforce the dress code, all school staff must be notified of the policy at the beginning of the school year in regards to its purpose and spirit, and how to enforce it without shaming students or disproportionately impacting certain student groups. Staff should be guided by the dress code policy and follow the letter and spirit of the dress code.

When a school staff member or school administrator discusses a dress or grooming violation with a student, it is recommended that another adult should be present and at least one of the two adults should be the same gender identity as the student. Unless there is an immediate concern, a student should not be spoken to about a dress code violation in front of other students.

Teachers or staff discussing a dress or grooming violation with a student should present options for obtaining appropriate clothing (e.g. school clothing supply, call home, borrow from a friend).

Where possible, students should not be required to wear school owned replacement garments and should never be required to wear specific garments as a disciplinary measure.

Discipline for dress or grooming violations should be consistent with the discipline policies for comparable violations.

· First infraction will result in a warning and require the student to correct their attire

· Second infraction will result in lunch trash pickup and require the student to correct their attire

· Third and subsequent infraction will result in a Saturday school and parent conference and require the student to correct their attire