ELLSWORTH—Can a dress code improve students’ behavior? Can it enhance the learning climate and even prevent violence?

Would school uniforms improve academic performance or would they violate students’ rights?

Those are questions the Ellsworth School Committee wants parents to consider this summer, in time for the committee to discuss a possible systemwide dress code or uniform policy for the coming fall.

Parents of Ellsworth students last week received a memo from the school committee, asking for opinions on the matter.

The decision to consider such a policy, especially at the high school, arose in May during discussions with faculty and the general public about school violence nationwide.

The memo details four dress code options, ranging from a minimal policy that bans tank tops and baggy pants, among other fashion statements, to one that requires students in all grades to wear a school uniform.

Committee Chair Dick Gray said Tuesday the memo was intended only to solicit responses from parents, staff and students.

"We’re just looking at options on it," he said. "We’re asking the parents, the public, ‘Where should we be on this?’ We’re certainly open to suggestions."

Ellsworth Middle School is the only school in the Ellsworth school system that has a dress code. The code there bans tank tops, belly shirts, heavy link chains and skirts or shorts that are shorter than an inch and a half below the student’s fingertips. Also prohibited is message-bearing clothing, such as T-shirts, that conveys a sexual, violent or drug/alcohol message.

At the high school, the only clothing students aren’t allowed to wear is that which displays sexual, violent or drug/alcohol messages, according to Principal Lee Beal.

Beal said Tuesday he didn’t feel "comfortable" commenting on the school committee’s memo until he had heard from the community.

At the annual faculty/school board meeting in May, many of the high school teachers stressed the need to bring the dress code in line with the middle school’s policy.

"I think we need rules—not stringent," acknowledged Gray. "I’m not sure going to uniforms is the right thing to do at this time. I’m not sure I would support that, but I think we need some happy medium.

"I would like to see kids wearing something presentable. I think it’s a form of self-respect."

Alice Dow, a member of the school committee, wrote the dress code memo on behalf of the board. She said she hopes instituting some rules would increase school pride and respect, as well as decrease the incidence of peer harassment.

She based the first, minimal choice on the policy already in effect at Ellsworth Middle School—adding the ban on baggy pants, which she defines as being two to three sizes larger than necessary.

The second alternative, slightly stricter and based on a policy at the private John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, does not allow blue-colored jeans, tank tops, shorts, windpants, hats, sunglasses or sandals without socks.

The third policy possibility would require students to wear polo shirts with a school emblem, along with jeans or khaki-style pants, and no sandals without socks.

Last, Dow presented the option of requiring complete, head-to-toe uniforms, although she stressed her hope that this option not be chosen.

"I hope that it doesn’t go that far," she said.

Across the country, strict dress codes and uniforms are becoming more common in public schools, especially in the wake of increasing school violence.

In 1996, the U.S. Department of Education released the "Manual on School Uniforms," a booklet outlining guidelines for public schools to use in implementing policies on school uniforms.

The manual—available on the internet at www.ed.gov/updates/uniforms.html—states several potential benefits related to the adoption of school uniform policies. Among those, the U.S. Department of Education claims school uniforms decrease school-related violence and theft, instill discipline in students, teach resistance of peer pressure, help students concentrate on their school work, and enable school officials to recognize intruders who enter to the school.

At the time, President Clinton voiced strong support for the concept as a way to reduce crime and violent acts in schools. The American Civil Liberties Union decried the idea as "a Band-aid solution to a set of serious problems that defy easy answers."

The U.S. Department of Education’s manual states that it is important to get parents involved from the beginning for such a policy to work. It also stresses the need to protect students’ religious rights and other rights of expression—one of the biggest hurdles for school uniform proponents.

The manual’s guidelines require each school district that implements a uniform policy to offer students an "opt out" provision.

According to the manual, communities in California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia have enacted public school uniform regulations. Most of these policies apply only to elementary and middle schools—not high schools.

In Maine, whether a community wants to enact such a policy is a local—not a state—issue, said Greg Scott, director of state and local relations in the commissioner’s office of the state Department of Education.

Currently, he said, no public schools in Maine require uniforms, although many have dress codes.

Dale Douglass, executive director of Maine School Management Association, said he would not be surprised if school districts begin to implement stricter dress policies.

"I suspect what is happening in Ellsworth will be happening in more and more districts across the state as issues related to school safety get more serious," he said.

After the school shooting in Littleton, Colo., this spring, he received a number of requests for information from school boards regarding dress codes. Some Maine school districts issued a ban on trench coats, like those worn by the teen-age gunmen—Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold—in the Colorado incident.

"I think that has been the catalyst," Douglass said.

Committee member Dow said Tuesday the school committee has received some direct feedback—largely positive—regarding the proposal, and more is expected. She said she hadn’t yet collected those responses that had been sent to school administrators.

In order to implement a systemwide dress code for the coming school year, she said, the final decision should be made before August—when most school shopping is done.

The item might be placed on the July 13 school committee agenda for discussion and possible action, Dow said.

Ellsworth resident Pat Ryder, whose daughter will attend the high school in the fall, supports the concept of a dress code and even school uniforms—as long as they are comfortable. She thinks a code or uniform would be especially helpful at the high school.

"I think that if EHS students could forget about status clothing, they would save a great deal of time, money and brain space," Ryder wrote in her response to the committee. She said both of her older daughters worked part-time while attending the high school just so they could buy "the things they thought they had to have to be accepted."

That time spent working, she pointed out, could have been spent on extracurricular activities or, even better, on learning.

In addition, Ryder said school uniforms would remove "one more social barrier" between students from different income levels and allow each to view the other on an equal level.

Adam Reed, an EHS freshman from Orland, agreed Tuesday that the high school needs a dress code.

"If there was a dress code, I think it would lower violence in the school and make for a more peaceful environment," said Reed, a bleached blond boy wearing a "Co-ed Naked" T-shirt and torn jeans. Wear the wrong clothes, he said, and you run the risk of "offending" another student, which could lead to harassment and, potentially, violence.

As a whole, Reed saw more positive than negative in the school committee’s inquiry about dress codes. If the dress code were stricter, he said, students might pay more attention to what their teachers’ are saying, as opposed to what their neighbors are wearing in the classroom.

Nichole Willis, a seventh grader at Ellsworth Middle School, said she wouldn’t mind wearing a uniform to school.

"I think it’s fine," said Willis, who was wearing windpants, a tank top and sandals—none of which would be allowed under the second dress code option. "Then our parents wouldn’t have to spend so much money on clothes, and we wouldn’t have to be late for school while we pick out our school clothes."

Her mother, Lisa Smith of Ellsworth, said she, too, would support school uniforms.

"I’m all for it," Smith said, emphatically. "I think school is a place to learn, not a place to make fashion or social statements."

She said she is "not looking forward" to her daughter going to Ellsworth High School in a couple of years, but added she would feel better if the school had a strict dress policy in effect.