School restricts camo clothing

Altoona Area High School students were told last week to keep certain camouflage clothing at home for the time being.

Students are not permitted to wear the popular fashion staple from Nov. 25 through December after what a district official called a "disruption" in mid-November.

Principal Patricia Burlingame announced a no-camouflage rule to students Nov. 24 to "alleviate some tensions," school district spokesman Tom Bradley said last week.

Students who violate the new rule will receive a Saturday detention, Bradley said in an e-mail.

No one had violated the rule before Thanksgiving break; students will return to class today.

"It should be noted that this in no way has anything to do with military garb, which has an insignia and/or a branch of the military shown on 'fatigues,'" Bradley said. "Some of our students wear fatigues because they've already enlisted, and they can continue to do so."

He was not permitted to talk about student discipline cases but touched on what he could about a matter the district did not consider a big deal, Bradley said.

"There was a disruption at Altoona High last week that eventually involved several meetings with students, counselors and administrators," Bradley said. "As a result, a temporary restriction was placed on the wearing of hunter's camouflage during the school day as the wearing of such had the potential to cause additional disruptions."

Parent Lenise Dizely said her daughter told her that when Burlingame made the announcement to the school it included any kind of camouflage clothing because it was "gang colors." Dizely said she can understand students not being permitted to wear gang-related clothing, but added she was upset with what she said was a restriction on her daughter wearing a camouflage T-shirt reading, "Support Our Troops."

"This is getting crazy," she said.

The school district, however, maintains the matter is not gang related.

"This was not the result of any type of gang activity," Bradley said, adding, "In this case, hunter's camo had the potential to be a distraction."

Restrictions on student attire in the district are not new. Clothing showing gang colors or symbols was forbidden when the school board approved a written policy in 2006.

Handbooks for Altoona senior and junior high students also state other clothing is restricted, including revealing clothing or clothes imprinted with vulgar language, sexually suggestive material or images of violence.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, state code says school districts can forbid certain clothes if they are seen as disruptive or cause a health or safety risk. School boards have the power to make stricter dressing rules or require a school uniform, the organization states.

AASD parent Stacy Diehl's eighth-grade son doesn't attend high school yet, but she said that when she went clothes shopping for him, she made sure not to buy anything that could land him in detention.

If the clothing doesn't have swear words or advertise beer and cigarettes, Diehl doesn't see anything wrong with it.

"It's just a shirt. It can't make them be bad kids," she said. "It's all in how you're raised."