TOP PHOTO: The Campbell County BOE Policy Committee met on Wednesday evening to discuss the dress code policy. BOE Junior Representatives Madison McCullah, right, spoke on behalf of Campbell County High School and Raylee Loudin, left, represented Jellico High School.

By Charlotte Underwood

JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- The Campbell County Board of Education Policy Committee met on Wednesday evening, hearing a brief presentation from Jellico and Campbell County High School student representatives regarding dress code policy.

Several high school students from CCHS and Jellico attended the meeting as part of the presentation; Madison McCullah spoke on behalf of Campbell County High School and Raylee Loudin represented Jellico High School. Both had conducted student input and teacher surveys at their schools regarding thoughts on the proposed dress code policy that BOE member Brandon Johnson had submitted several months ago.

“These students have been working diligently on school dress code, and they have been doing a really great job, and they are going to present to you the progress that they have made so far with school dress code and some things they would like to see,” said BOE Policy Committee Chairman Jamie Wheeler.

Board Member Brandon Johnson spoke, clarifying that the policy he had presented was “Knox County’s Policy, so what you all are discussing is exactly the dress code that Knox County students are expected to adhere to. I was really passionate, and I appreciate that chairman Wheeler was also very passionate about getting student input. I never thought that the version of the dress code that was initially proposed would be the one that would be the final result, the intent was to always get student input involved in the entire process and work with students’ hand in hand to find a solution that is a win-win for everyone,” Johnson said.

“They have looked at Knox County’s dress code, they have looked at Claiborne County’s Dress code and looked at a lot of surrounding counties dress codes; we have had a lot of good meetings, and I have really enjoyed it,” Wheeler said.

Jellico’s junior BOE member Raylee Loudin spoke first.

“We have gone through our handbook from last year’s dress code, and we did a survey; we had 24 responses from that together with all of our teaching staff,” Loudin said.

One of the issues identified at Jellico was wearing hats – it is the school’s dress code that wearing hats is not allowed.

“It’s in our dress code that we are not supposed to wear them, but we would like to propose a joint agreement that hats and head coverings, and beanies can be worn only in communal  areas such as hallways, the gym, lunchroom and outside areas, but to teacher discretion in their class rooms,” Loudin said, suggesting that it be handled similar to how teachers handle cell phone usage.

“Our other issue was pajama pants. We see five to eight people a day wearing pajama pants, we thought it was very unprofessional. I think if you are coming to school eight hours a day, the least you can do is put on a pair of jeans or leggings. That was really our only problems identified through teacher surveys,” Loudin said.

Campbell County High School’s student BOE junior representative Madison McCullah spoke next.

“We had a little bit harder of a time, in the sense that none of us could find a concrete dress code in recent years to go off of, so given this, we sent out a teacher survey as well. In the survey we found that hoods, hats, shorts, face coverings and pajama bottoms were some of our biggest issues,” McCullah said

Some of the suggestions that came out their survey and discussion was the feeling that face coverings such as ski masks, etc., unless medically necessary, should be banned entirely. When it came to hoodies and hoods, they had a similar issue and we chose that in communal areas and cafeterias, hoods and hoodies should be off. However, in the classroom, it would be up to the teacher’s discretion.

“Another issue that we have at Campbell County High is crop tops, belly shirts, and very thin spaghetti straps, so we definitely want to see more regulation on this; almost a complete ban on crop tops and a reasonable two or more finger lengths on shoulder straps,” McCullah said.

She also said sagging pants were an issue and that it needed to be outright banned, that there was “no reason to have sagging pants and that belts existed.”

Enforcement policies were also discussed and how to enforce a dress code policy, once it is implemented.

“One thing too, that I would like to hear is how to handle the enforcement policy on what the teachers and principals will actually do… because we can sit up here and we can draft dress codes all day long, we can put in writing, put it in handbooks, but if the teachers and principals are not enforcing them, we are back to square one,” McCullah said.

Loudin said that was one of their survey questions at Jellico High School as well.

Both Loudin and McCullah said they had teachers say in the survey say that they were uncomfortable enforcing a dress code.

McCullah said she felt having a solid dress code that teachers could have to pull out and show students would help.

Student representatives suggested that dress code checks be performed at the schools.

McCullah said their school felt dress code checks should come during second block because most students have a second block class, while Loudin said Jellico felt their dress code checks should occur during first block.

“Guys you did a great job. This is a work in progress, and we will be meeting next Thursday at 10am, with both high schools together,” Wheeler said. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-05/02/2025-6AM)

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