Focus on Learning, Not on Clothing

* Re: “Seeking Redress: Ventura High Students Protest Revamped Dress Code” (Sept. 23).

I was impressed by the thoughtful, intelligent statements of the students quoted, and disappointed that school administrators at Ventura High seem to be so shortsighted.

When I (and many of them) was in high school in the late ‘60s, students were protesting high school dress codes. Many of those students who insisted on breaking the rules and attending school in thigh-high skirts, or hip-hugging bell-bottoms whose cuffs dragged on the ground, went on to become educators, editors, doctors, lawyers and other productive members of society.

Whether a girl’s bra strap shows next to her tank-top strap should not be a matter for legislation. School administrators should focus their attention on whether that girl is being challenged intellectually in their classrooms and whether her educational needs are being met.

If they feel that her clothing is causing a few boys on campus to behave inappropriately, then some consciousness-raising sessions for those boys (and their parents) may be in order.

I was intrigued by the photograph accompanying the article, which shows the vice principal reprimanding a freshman girl for wearing a dress and combat boot combination that appears to cover a whole lot more skin than the vice principal’s bermudas do. There is a good chance that some students may not like the vice principal’s choice of attire, but they probably are smart enough and logical enough to figure that what she wears is her business, as long as she gets the job done.

It would be nice if the administration could be that smart and that logical.

LENI FLEMING

Ojai

* It is very difficult to understand how effective the current Ventura High School dress code could be after seeing a photograph in your Sept. 23 edition of a student being admonished for her inappropriate attire by Vice Principal Valerie Wyatt, who is apparently on duty and dressed in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian sport shirt. Am I missing something here?

DOROTHY E. SCHECHTER

Ventura