Houston high school principal implements dress code – for parents

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A Houston high school principal has come under fire for implementing a dress code for parents.

James Madison High School Principal Carlotta Outley Brown said the code is necessary to establish standards for students but critics said the move could be discriminatory.

The new high school protocol will mean that parents will be turned away if they show up to school wearing pajamas, hair rollers, leggings or certain other items of clothing, including bonnets.

Also banned from school grounds are men wearing undershirts, parents wearing sagging pants or shorts, revealing tops, torn jeans “showing lots of skin,” and “dresses that are up to your behind.”

"No one can enter the building or be on the school premises wearing a satin cap or bonnet on their head for any reason," Brown said in a letter to parents dated April 9. "You also cannot wear a shower cap of any kind in the building."

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"You are your child's first teacher," Outley Brown continued in the note. "We must have high standards."

The dress code was established after local station KPRC-TV reported a mother was attempting to enroll her child was asked to leave due to her attire. She was wearing a headscarf and a T-shirt dress.

Tomiko Miller, a mother of a student enrolled at the school, called the move “discriminatory.” The parent said she was “almost insulted” by the new code.

"I really think it was discriminatory, the language that was used," she said. "It was demeaning. And I'm African American — and if it's misty outside and I have a hair bonnet on, I don't see how that's anyone's business,” she told the Houston Chronicle.

Carlotta Outley Brown, principal at James Madison High School, has implemented a dress code for parents because she says it is necessary to establish high standards for students, despite criticism that the move could be discriminatory. (Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Forty percent of the students who attend the high school are African American, according to the Houston Independent School District.

Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, called codes relating to women's hair "classist" and "belittling."

"I'm sorry, this principal may have plenty of money and time to go to the hairdresser weekly and have her stuff done," he told the newspaper. "Who are you to judge others who may not have the same opportunities that you do? Having a wrap on your head is not offensive. It should not be controversial."

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Outley Brown, who is African American, took over as principal during the current school year, becoming the school's fourth principal in five years. She was previously the principal at a Houston elementary school that routinely met state academic standards and earned awards for performing above average. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres also gave the principal a $100,000 check for her work in a homeless outreach program she created.

While some are outraged by the new rules, some parents understand the code.

“Presentation is everything. The way you carry yourself shows a lot about yourself,” Roshelle Ruffin, whose daughter attends the high school, told The New York Times. “If you can get dressed up to do other things, you can definitely get yourself prepared to go to your child’s school.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.