Gangs Prompt Dress, Behavior Code at Schools

A strong anti-gang policy was approved unanimously Tuesday by San Diego city schools trustees after several principals and the district’s chief police officer pleaded with the board to send a tough message to schools, parents and the community.

The policy says that each school community--consisting of the high school and the elementary and junior highs that feed students into the community--will set up a school dress and behavior code that “will eliminate gang-related behaviors.”

Trustees said they find that the “wearing of gang-related signs, insignia, distinctive modes of dress denoting gang affiliation, and gang-related behaviors by students constitute a substantial disruption of school and school-related activities.”

“It’s great, it’s definitely a message we want,” Alex Rascon, chief of the San Diego Unified School District police, said after the vote.

With thousands of students attending schools outside their neighborhoods all over the city, the potential for gang-related intimidation exists throughout the school system, and educators worry that many parents increasingly consider private schools for their children if they can afford them because of the fear of gang behavior.

But the decision came only after almost two hours of intensive discussion over the practical meaning of the policy and whether, if enforced improperly, it would lead to an overemphasis on clothing and little or no counseling, leading to discrimination against Latino and black students.

Board President Shirley Weber asked why the policy was needed, given the fact that individual schools can, and in some cases have, put their own anti-gang plans into effect.

In addition, Weber, a professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University, expressed fear that principals would use any systemwide expression of concern to crack down on dress popular with Latinos and blacks, whether or not the clothing or activity showed clear gang affiliations.

Weber said she has received complaints from minority students in the Southeast area--where many ethnic gangs exist--that Anglo students are not prohibited from wearing the same colors or type of clothing that at times are automatically forbidden or discouraged for minority students.

However, Mission Bay High Principal Maruta Gardner, while agreeing that principals need to uniformly enforce any individual campus policy, said clothing in and of itself “is often a form of gang behavior,” even though a student does not necessarily fight at or otherwise physically disrupt a school.

“You need to see my (former school) Mann Middle,” where students would come to school wearing jackets with a gang name emblazoned on the back, she said.

“They would just stand by the lockers, not doing any other behavior, but just stand there--and that in and of itself is a way to sign and message (gang activity) and is intimidating.

“Then other (gang) groups start wearing their jackets and we have to say, ‘No, that is not OK.’ . . . We need to set a climate that we can’t have” intimidation.

Supt. Tom Payzant said the “issue is dress, folks,” adding that while some principals take strong action against displays of clothing that can be a catalyst toward intimidation and physical harm, others still look the other way.

“These principals need to have a sense from the board that dress is a concern, but one to be dealt with in a sensitive way,” Payzant said. Such concerns “are at the center of people’s attention at (individual) schools right now,” he added.

Gardner said that principals, especially those at the elementary levels who are less familiar with gang behavior, believe “the strong stand must come from the top, to say that we as a district do not condone these things at schools.”

Weber then proposed the language about “eliminating gang-related behaviors” to emphasize that solutions involve more than just identifying clothing.

“That gets at all of the things that must go on” to reduce the problem, and not just focus on a dress code, Weber said.

Tony Alfaro, principal at Memorial Junior High in Barrio Logan, said principals will be sensitive to the issue of fairness. He said, for example, that he does not ban Los Angeles Raiders jackets at his school--although some gangs have adopted the Raiders moniker--because of their general popularity among all students, making them a poor indicator of gang behavior on the campus.

But he will ban all caps beginning next fall because a growing number of students are using them to signify gang affiliation. And he hopes a voluntary dress code of standard blue denim pants and a white or blue polo shirt will attract enough students to become a force on campus in the fall.

Alfaro said that while principals want to give students counseling to overcome the desire to join gangs, they are not naive enough to think that can happen overnight.

“You don’t always have the time to pursue” the counseling, he said. “Sometimes you have to say, ‘This is the way it is going to be,’ ” that schools are to be neutral territory for all students.

Trustees also voted 3 to 2, with Weber and Sue Braun opposed, to seek a change in the state education code allowing gang behavior to be placed in a special suspension category, as are offenses for carrying a weapon to school or extorting a student.