Sensitivity to dress.

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Parents React To JISD Dress Code

Parents are speaking out about the new standardized dress code passed by the

ville School Board Monday night. It will require students to wear

black, khaki or navy pants and one of five solid shirts.

Shields has two children, including a 3 year old son who will be

affected by the code. Both her children have autism, and she says buying two

sets of uniforms will cause a financial problem for her family. Beyond that,

she says the dress code does not make enough exceptions for children who are

particularly small, like her son or those who are overweight.

Have any other parents experienced this problem?

I've been fighting standardized dress codes and uniforms since my son's

school first implemented them in 1998. This was long before he was diagnosed

with Asperger's but now that I know what I'm looking at, I've realized it

played a big part as to why I took this as a great affront to my parenting.

He was in first grade, but his fine motor skills weren't the best (he

couldn't work the buttons or snaps) and the texture of certain things

bothered him. To me, clothing isn't important as long as it is cheap, clean

and respectful so he wore sweats in the winter and pull on shorts in the

summer. When they started the standardized dress code, they wiped out his

entire wardrobe.

To me -- the idea that they were going to tell me that my son was

unacceptable to attend their school unless he wore a certain color and style

of clothing was beyond any form of legitimate authority. I started looking

into it and found they had violated their own policy to implement it and

that the Superintendent had waived his magic wand and gave them dispensation

for their violations. The irony was that they were now going to be punishing

kids for wearing the wrong color in violation of their rules and they

violated their own rules putting the thing in place. However, during the

process, I did find out how to apply for an exemption and I received one

because of my religious and philosophical beliefs. Since then, I've been

helping parents across Texas seek exemptions from uniform policies. Had he

been diagnosed with it at the time, I'm sure I could have had a medical

exemption, but this was 7 years before he was diagnosed with it.

Over the years, I've gotten several letters from parents whose child had

autism and were seeking help. One knew they could get the exemption but was

afraid it would only make his son feel like he stuck out more. This was

before my son was diagnosed and I could only tell him that it didn't bother

my son that he was the only one dressed like he was, as he was comfortable.

(Here I thought we were raising him correctly to not feel peer-pressure,

only to learn that it is one of the aspects of his Asperger's. See there is

always a positive side to everything.) I never heard what he ended up

deciding to do. Another one that stands out in my mind was an adult who

contacted me once and said he supported our cause because he had a form of

autism and for him it was difficult to see everyone in the same color and

dressed the same, something about not being able to concentrate on facial

features (face blindness he called it) and learning to focus on the

different clothes people were wearing to tell people apart at that time.

Since my son was diagnosed and I've started trying to find out more about

it, I've learned that the way it can affect each person can be vastly

different. I'm just curious if others have had similar experiences. For now

it's not a problem anymore. He's in high school and wears jeans - but that

is all he wears. If they tried to ban jeans though - I'd be back to square

one. I'm sure they wouldn't fight me on this issue, because I've got enough

information to win this one. But what about all the others.

Thanks for letting me talk,

Vickie