Skirting Around The Lakewood High School Dress Code

Forty years ago, students returning to Lakewood High School noticed a new principal, two new assistant principals, and two new deans. “Change” became the buzzword throughout the 1983-84 academic year. The school’s yearbook described that transitional year as a “Time for a Change.”

A short, week-long protest in April 1983 prompted some of these changes. No skirting around the issue: a dressing down about shorts and skirts in the Code of Conduct brought national attention to the Lakewood campus.

Similar to discussions about instructional materials, gender boundaries, and parental involvement in public schools today, battles over dress codes have enmeshed Pinellas school conversations for more than 50 years.

Shoes Optional?

Early Pinellas schools had informal dress codes. Students often came to class without shoes. Standards became more rigorous after World War II. Kids who lived near groves may have worn blue jeans to class a century ago, but their children had to wear pants or dresses.

Before Boca Ciega High School opened in 1953, the nearest white high schools in lower Pinellas were St. Petersburg, Largo, and Clearwater Highs. Students at St. Pete and Clearwater often joked that Largo Packers never packed shoes when they went anywhere.

Rights and Responsibilities

By the late 1960s, students began to test boundaries in high schools throughout America.

Boys started to grow hair over their ears. Girls donned boots and miniskirts. Pinellas school leaders came up with a proactive approach to address changing student attitudes, fashion tastes, and demands.

During the fall of 1969, Pinellas school leaders created a Student Rights and Responsibilities Committee (SRRC) to address student demands. Rev. Arthur Libby Albers, a progressive Pinellas County School Board member, wanted an advisory committee allowing students to participate in conversations about dress codes, due process, privacy rights, and freedom of expression.

The first SRRC meeting took place at Largo High in November 1969. Albers chaired the meeting of 65 student leaders. By April 1970, SRRC members requested meetings with Superintendent Thomas Southard and board members about dress and grooming rules.

Dressing Down the Dress Code

Dr. Charles Crist, father of Charlie Crist, also served on the school board at the time. After listening to student requests, Crist called for the district to scrap all codes and permit principals to have discretion on determining standards of “good taste and good hygiene.”

Students proudly shared their opinions and administrators listened. For the rest of the 1969-70 school year, girls could wear pantsuits, boots, and miniskirts. Boys could grow their hair longer and wear sandals, or shoes without socks, as a way of “air-conditioning” their feet, unless they had an industrial arts class. All junior and senior high students could wear shorts.

The liberalized dress code continued for the next few years. By January 1971, principals approved the concept of enforcing “clean and decent” dress and grooming. Unlike earlier paternalistic policies or later restrictive retrenchments, principals bore the burden of explaining why attire or hair styles failed to meet acceptable policies.

Some restrictions did remain. Rules shaved away opportunities for boys to wear mustaches, beards, beads, t-shirts, or medallions. Girls could not wear bloomer dresses.

By the mid-1970s, student leaders who had served on the SRRC could take credit for ensuring student involvement in the creation of a dress code that most of their peers liked. SRRC participation also fostered increased opportunities for girls to establish middle and high school sports teams.

A Short Leash

Dress code restrictions increased in the late 1970s. Principals reclaimed their right to restrict the wearing of shorts. Lee Roy Sullivan became Lakewood’s principal during the 1979-80 school year. He brought administrative experience from his tenure as leader at Safety Harbor Middle School, a campus where shorts had been given the short shrift.

Known as “Roy,” Sullivan soon prohibited Lakewood Spartans from wearing shorts and shoes without backs. Lakewood’s SRRC members unsuccessfully appealed him to reconsider in January 1980. During the beginning of the 1982-83 school year, Lakewood was one of six of the county’s 14 public high schools that did not permit shorts.

On a countywide level, SRRC members believed that school administrators had lost interest in their input. In early April 1983, a Seminole High student called on peers to consider a strike to get the attention of school board members and Supt. Scott Rose. Soon thereafter, the situation escalated at Lakewood High.

Spartans in Skirts

Tax Day 1983 was a taxing day for Sullivan. On April 15, Jeff Struthers came to campus wearing a blue miniskirt. A few other students followed the senior’s lead in conspiring to show some leg. Struthers and the others protested that they could not wear shorts less revealing than the miniskirts their female peers regularly wore.

Some Lakewood administrators initially responded with a little humor. Catherine Fleeger, an assistant principal at the time, told a St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times) reporter that there was no need to overreact if a few students attempted to skirt the rules.

“If they want to wear miniskirts, there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said.

Noting that wearing miniskirts was a popular fad at the time, Fleeger added that “girls would have a hard time finding anything else on the racks to wear.”

Indeed, girls provided most of the skirts that boys wore during the protest.

Sullivan did not share Fleeger’s lighthearted view. According to Struthers, Sullivan called him into the office and said he would not graduate if he showed up in a skirt again. Sullivan also warned the entire student body over the intercom that nobody should test his resolve by challenging the dress code.

Dressing for the Cameras

A second wave of protests occurred on April 20. Approximately 20 students donned skirts for less than 15 minutes in front of television cameras at campus. By the time classes began and reporters departed, long pants had replaced skirts.

Sullivan could not skirt around the growing attention the media gave to these protests. He fielded calls from CBS News and turned down a request to appear on ABC’s Good Morning America. Students began to call into local radio stations to complain about the dress code.

On April 21, Sullivan decided to suspend Struthers for five days, a move that angered many of his classmates. The following morning, more than 250 students showed their frustration.

One week after the initial protest, more than 50 students wore shorts to campus on April 22. Others missed the first class bell in support of peers who wore shorts. Some held signs with statements such as “Cool it Sullivan” and “We want shorts” in front of the cameras.

Sullivan ordered students to go to class. Most dispersed, but a few stayed. Acting on behalf of Superintendent Rose, he warned students again. When the bell for second period rang, he told the remaining 37 students they were suspended for up to 10 days.

“You are no longer students at Lakewood High School,” Sullivan admonished. Police escorted them from campus.

Talk in the Teachers’ Lounge

By the early 1980s, teachers at Lakewood High witnessed many transitions. Racial tensions started to ease. Due to changing demographics, Lakewood had integrated without many students having to travel long distances on buses.

Mike Eccles did his internship at Lakewood High. He remembers the camaraderie on a campus that had a “neighborhood school” feel. Students got along well with each other, and “Lakewood had found out something” about integrating in a way that had not happened at other schools.

When a social studies faculty position opened immediately after he earned his degree from the University of South Florida, Eccles had the rare opportunity to stay at the same school. He agreed to coach as well as teach.

Eccles recalled that older faculty tended to frown on the protests as an unnecessary distraction. Younger and newer teachers generally supported the cause. They believed that students had legitimate complaints and learned leadership skills from their actions.

Eccles credited the students for carefully reviewing the Code of Conduct and doing their research.

“You have to stand up for what you believe,” he added.

Faculty could see that Sullivan was caught in the middle, trying to enforce a school policy while feeling obvious pressure from Rose to quell any dress code dissent.

Eccles remembered Sullivan as a hands-off administrator who trusted his teachers and cared deeply about student success. Sullivan only planned to intervene if necessary. Demands from above and growing media attention left him no choice.

The Long and Shorts of It

Although Rose wanted to make an example of the students, Sullivan ultimately took a more moderate tone. By April 25, most suspensions were reduced to three days, ensuring that seniors would be able to graduate with their peers. No students had to transfer to another school.

Less than two weeks after the skirt protests, Rose announced that Lakewood would get a new principal. The superintendent cited a policy of rotating principals every 10 years, an argument that made little sense since Sullivan has served at Lakewood for less than five years.

Administrators claimed that Sullivan’s transfer to Countryside High School in the fall of 1983 had nothing to do with the protests. Fred Buckman replaced Sullivan as Lakewood’s new principal 40 years ago this fall.

A month after the protests, an advisory body comprised of parents recommended a full ban on shorts in middle and high schools. Unlike in earlier days, no SRRC members had direct involvement in this decision. Rose persuaded school board members to pass this ban during the summer of 1983.

Two years later, Rose convinced the school board to ban “disruptive” hair styles. This occurred after a girl at St. Pete High came to campus with purple accents in her hair and received a suspension.

End of the Short Story

Those involved in the April 1983 protest at Lakewood argued that if some students had permission to wear skirts, all students should have that right. Shorts are common attire on many campuses today.

Before the end of April 1983, 60 boys at a California high school held a successful skirt-in. Five years later, some students at North Miami Beach High School held an April 1988 skirt-wearing protest after air conditioners failed at their campus.

Sullivan spent more than a decade at Countryside before retiring in 1996. Fleeger later served as the school system’s Deputy Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer. Both outlasted the tenure of Rose, who retired in 1991.

Eccles transferred to Countryside in the fall of 1984, a year after Sullivan. Today, he volunteers as a docent at the Palm Harbor Museum.

While sharing his love of Florida history, he often wears shorts.