Dress with success: Jersey schools try teaching by example Tuesday, September 05, 2006 • BY JONATHAN CASIANO • Star-Ledger Staff Tattered jeans. Flip-flops. Worn- out T-shirts. Designer sunglasses. These might be the hottest styles on the street, but many school officials are tired of seeing them in their hallways -- especially when they're worn by teachers. "I'm not against style, but I think there's a way to dress at work and a way to dress when you're going out with friends," said Flor ham Park Superintendent Bill Ronzitti. "We expect to be role models for the children we service and we should dress appropriately." Like school districts in Birmingham, Ala.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Campbell County, Ky., Flor ham Park this year is establishing dress standards for its teachers -- requiring shirts and slacks for men and a variety of "smart casual" looks for women. "My objective is to professionalize and standardize the staff. I expect them to be neat, clean and appropriate for the work they're doing," Ronzitti said. Dress codes for staff aren't nearly as prevalent in New Jersey as those for students, with only a handful of districts detailing what teachers can and can't wear, said Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association. Steve Baker, a spokesman for the state teachers union, said it was "not something I've seen come up frequently." But that could be changing as most of New Jersey's 1.4 million public school students head back to school this week. In August, Vineland's board of education passed a staff dress code after students complained their teachers were wearing the same type of revealing clothing that, if worn by students, would require them to go home and change. And in Orange, Superintendent Nathan Parker said there's a draft of a staff dress code on the table while the second phase of a student dress policy goes into effect this fall. Like officials in Vineland, Parker said he's looking to move teachers away from the provocative styles favored by their students, like low-rise jeans. "You can't have a two-tiered system," Parker said. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander, too." In Vineland, where most elementary students wear uniforms to school, district business administrator Kevin Franchetta said it was especially important to get teachers on the same page. "Our students are asked to wear khaki pants and polo shirts and the board felt the teachers should at least be dressed as nice as the students," Franchetta said. So far, the measures have been met with little resistance from teachers, who say they want their colleagues to dress professionally and set a good example for stu dents. When Sayreville proposed its faculty dress code in 2002, the main complaint was about a ban on jeans, said former teachers union vice president Steve Gozora. But after the board agreed to allow jeans on Fridays much of the initial grumbling was silenced, he said. "Like anything else, when you have a change every person's against it in the beginning until they adjust. But once the adjustments were made, and they were made very quickly, you didn't really hear about it anymore," said Go zora, who retired last year. Jean Seery, the school nurse at Florham Park's Briarwood Elemen tary School and corresponding secretary for the teachers union, said she expects the changes to be im plemented smoothly. "Styles change and we have to go with the times, but at the same time we have to remain conservative because you're in an impressionable population," she said. Beverly Holmes, the mother of two Orange elementary school students, agreed, saying it's unreasonable to expect students to follow a strict dress code if teachers are pushing the limits. "Some of the teachers are young themselves and have that night-life type of living and it carries over into their profession and the way they dress for work," Holmes said. "For the most part they do dress professionally, but when even a handful don't it's detrimental to the success of what they're trying to implement for the students." Jonathan Casiano covers Essex County. He may be reached at jcasiano@starledger.com. © 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.