APS Dress Code back in the news

According to APS Administrative Procedural Directives, link, students are specifically prohibited from "sagging".

"Sagging", or the wearing of pants below the waist and/or in a manner that allows underwear or bare skin to show, and "bagging", or the wearing of excessively baggy pants with low hanging crotches. 

If you drive by any APS middle or high school, you will see students sagging; openly, brazenly.

According to the Journal, link,

This year, the boys at Madison Middle School have pulled up their pants.

That's good news; that is progress; only 26 middle schools, 13 high schools, and 11 alternative schools to go.  Disclaimer, I have not visited those schools, perhaps one or two of them are enforcing the dress code; I will bow as always to controverting evidence.

The success at Madison Middle School is unique enough that the Journal found their success newsworthy.  The underlying theme; boys are in compliance at Madison, the girls are not, is not comforting.

Who is in charge in APS schools, the adults who write the rules, or the students who ignore them?  It is an important question.  Students who refuse to obey rules are by definition out of control.  Students who deliberately break rules are "in charge" at their schools.

Oddly, the principal doesn't see the compliance of boys as the result of adult influence, but rather;

“Maybe baggy pants have gone out of style.”

The boys, all of them, were rewarded for their compliance.  The girls, even the ones who comply every single day, were punished.  Imagine the upset that caused among the compliant girls.  The Journal reports that parents as well, are upset by the blanket punishments and rewards.

One quote from the principal is simply too bizarre to let slip by;

“Girls this age probably don’t realize that their bodies are changing a lot and that what they’re wearing is a bit more revealing than they think.”

Really?  Is she kidding?

There are serious student discipline problems in the APS.  They are so serious that APS Supt Winston Brooks refuses to discuss them openly and honestly, link.

There is no longitudinal record, and no (honest) contemporaneous record is being created.

Hiding (from) the truth?

APS Police Chief Steve Tellez has admitted under oath, that even criminal misconduct does not necessarily create a record, link.

The "administrative solutions" he and his police force employ as a matter of policy create a false record of criminal misconduct in schools.

All of the establishment media outlets; the Journal, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB, were told about Tellez' testimony and have decided, apparently, to ignore the disparate treatment and record keeping of criminal offenders by APD, the BCSO, and APS' publicly funded private police force.




Tellez photo Mark Bralley