Education

Democratic State Rep Wants School Dress Code For The Parents

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Democratic state Rep. Antonio Parkinson of Tennessee is proposing a school dress code for parents, along with an adult code of conduct to help restore order to the state’s school system.

“All I’m doing in the bill is asking every school district to come up with a baseline code of conduct for anyone that steps foot on a school campus. And that means anyone. That could be the parent. That could be the student,” he said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.”

“That can be the teachers, vendors, speakers, visitors, anyone. And that’s what the legislation is going to do,” Parkinson continued. “It’s not as exciting as the media is making it out to be. A lot of media outlets have pulled out the dress code part of it, which may be included in the code of conduct or it may not if that’s not a need for the district.”

Parkinson said he’d heard stories about inappropriate behavior by adults on school property and claimed it was beginning to rub off on the children.

“I’ve heard some horror stories in consulting with some of our school leaders,” he said. “One is there was a school leader that mentioned a parent came to the school, actually came to the office, in her sleep wear, but it was sexy sleep wear and there was some body parts exposed. And you think about it, you have a line of second graders that’s holding on to each other’s shirts coming down the hall and they can possibly see this. And it may not be conducive to a good educational environment.”

Parkinson said despite the bad examples and cases of substance abuse among the parents, he remains optimistic about his proposal and said the new rules would help keep decorum.

“We have some challenges. But I always remain optimistic that some of these things can be overcome,” he said. “And a lot of times it’s about education. You know, there may not have been someone or someone around that could have possibly — just make it clear that there are some places where these things are inappropriate, some things, some places where you have to definitely observe certain decorum when you come into those areas.”

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