In the aftermath of a Stansbury High School homecoming dress crackdown that has become national news, the school’s assistant principal has said students and their parents are largely to blame for what went wrong. On Wednesday, two days after SHS principal Kendall Topham apologized publicly for turning dozens of girls away from a homecoming dance because their dresses were deemed too short by school officials, assistant principal Keith Davis sent out an email to other district employees in which he said girls deliberately chose to ignore the school’s dress code. “The sad part of this drama is the girls knew the standard before they went with their mothers to purchase their dresses,” Davis wrote. “They had seen the posters. It is the same poster used last year. I understand that it has been the same standard for the last two years and maybe in force since opening the school.” The poster Davis refers to was displayed around the school and at the entrance to the dance on Saturday night. It shows a picture of a girl in a dress that comes to the bottom of her knees. An arrow pointing to the hemline reads “must be knee length with no high slits.” However, the dress in the picture exceeds the school’s dress code standards, which are written in the SHS student planner to read “Red Formal Dresses should be at or near knee length.” Davis went on to say school administrators were being vilified. “What is sadder is that the school and the administration are being made out to be the villains in the drama caused by poor choices made by a few girls (15-20) out of a potential 750,” he wrote. “What were they thinking? That the school would not enforce the school standard that had been approved by the school community council, reviewed by the district and the board of education? What was even sadder than that was the attitude of a few parents to try and defend the choices their daughters made.” Mike Johnson’s daughter, Zoe, was one of those turned away at the door because her dress was too short. He paid $80 to have his daughter’s dress modified by adding straps and four inches of material to the hemline so it would comply with the dress code. The problem according to Johnson wasn’t the students or parents, but administrators and chaperones that did not know the policy or use good judgment when faced with an overwhelming number of students that tried to comply with the dress code but were arbitrarily being denied entrance to the dance. “The teachers and administrators at the door did not know the school policy,” said Johnson. “They kept referring to the picture on the poster which showed a dress that covered the knee and the policy clearly states ‘at or near the knee.’” If the chaperones at the door knew the policy, all the problems of the evening could have been avoided, according to Johnson. In his email, Davis noted there was dissent within the ranks of those charged with enforcing the dress code that night. “There were side bars with student leaders protesting the decision on the part of the administration to enforce the rule,” Davis said. “There were at least two teachers and a staff member who were vocal in supporting the parents rather than supporting those on duty.” On Monday morning, Topham apologized to students for confusion over the dress code, admitting that the language “at or near the knee” was vague. He also promised students a makeup dance in the future. Topham said he will meet with the SHS community council on Oct. 10 to review the wording of the dress code with an emphasis on finding a better way to word the definition of dress length. He added he has had more phone calls and emails from people that support the school’s dress code than he has had from people complaining about the school’s standards. Once the new wording of the dress code is finalized following the community council meeting, the student council will agree on a date for the makeup dance. “We want to make sure we have plenty of time to distribute and make widely known the new dress code language that will be enforced at the dance,” said Topham. Read more: Tooele Transcript Bulletin - SHS vice principal fires back
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