Kyra Morgan and Madeline McNeely are both sophomores at North Brunswick High School. For the past semester, the two of them have been advocating for a less restrictive dress code.
"We've been getting a lot of intel that students really just want to be able to wear their hats," Morgan told WHQR. "The hats, it really just makes people more comfortable. And we want to try and fix it, because we don't really see that there's an issue."
Their proposal came out of a school project for their leadership class, and has garnered near-unanimous support from the student body. But the Brunswick County Board of Education — which will be voting on the measure during their December 3rd board meeting — is less enthusiastic about it.
The survey
Morgan and McNeely first thought about proposing a policy change in September. According to McNeely, up til then the district's hat ban was pretty loosely enforced at North.
"It was something that they didn't really enforce that harshly until this year. And so when they went from not enforcing it at all and letting students wear hats, to cracking down on every single hood and every single hat that they see in the hallway… it angered a lot of students," she said.
The girls talked to their teacher, Kristen Hewett, about creating a survey on North's dress code policies. Over the next few weeks, they solicited hundreds of responses from their classmates through social media, poster campaigns and in-person lunchtime conversations. All told, they surveyed 886 out of the approximately 1500 students at North.
Hewett shared the results with WHQR: 94% of respondents opposed the hat ban, and 88% wanted to allow durags, too.
"Students were very vocal about their opinions — that they wanted their hats back," McNeely said.
Presenting to the school board
After completing the survey, North's high school principals shared the results with district superintendent Dale Cole and assistant superintendent Jonathan Paschal. During a committee meeting on Nov. 19th, Paschal presented the survey to the board, along with a policy proposal: close-fitting head coverings like baseball caps, beanies and durags would be allowed on BCS campuses.
Paschal explained that the recommendation mostly stemmed from practicality. As the weather grows colder, more and more students would be wearing beanies and hoods as they walked between classes outside. Enforcing the hat ban was becoming an issue for teachers and staff.
"What has typically happened is, as soon as they step foot in the door, it becomes that point of contention of, 'take your hat off, take your hat off, ugh, I didn't catch them this time,'" he said. "That's the question the high school principals are asking. Is running down kids for a hat or a beanie on their head really taking away from the instruction during the school day?"
The recommendation specifically allows form-fitting headgear, which would allow staff to recognize students on security cameras.
Board member Catherine Cooke slammed the proposal.
"How hard is it for a teacher to look over the room and see who's got a hat on?" she said. "If I was given a choice to wear whatever the heck I wanted to school, I'd do it too. I don't like any of this. You're basically letting the students make the rules."
Next steps
Morgan and McNeely said they understood why board members might object to the potential change in dress code. But they agreed with their principals –— enforcing the ban felt kind of pointless.
"The majority of teachers don't care enough to try to implement it, because they know as soon as you walk out through your classroom that you're gonna put your hats back on," said McNeely.
"We're spending too much time worrying about the little things when we need to be focused on how people are doing academically," said Morgan.
The proposed policy change is on the agenda for the board's last meeting of the year on Dec. 3. The students say they'll accept any decision — but will continue pushing to represent the student body. Morgan said they already had more surveys underway.
"Honestly, I know that they're adults, and they think that students and children should not have that big of an opinion, but we do," Morgan said. "And if that many people have an issue with a rule that adults are making, they should honestly see that there's a problem with this somewhere."
