Punahou to unveil
a new dress code

Parents remain divided as students
report they will have to choose
from approved tops

Punahou School students say they will soon have to heel to a stricter dress policy which clamps down on plunging necklines and bare midriffs.

Students at the missionary-founded campus said they were told yesterday that starting next fall, they would be required to wear shirts featuring high necklines and long enough to conceal the wearer's waist.

School officials said no final decisions have been made on the dress policy, a controversial issue on a campus that has been wrestling with the issue of scanty attire worn by some female students.

But upper-class students said they were told in an assembly that they will have to purchase shirts provided by an outside vendor selected by the school. The shirts will come in a range of styles, but all will be conservative, they said.

"It kind of sucks having to buy certain clothes instead of buying the things I want to wear," said Michel Babin, an 11th-grader, "but at least they're giving us some options instead of just one uniform."

The school also will allow official Punahou attire such as athletic sweatshirts, and students will be able to wear their own pants as long as they are at least ankle length, students said.

It was not clear which grades would be bound by the policy.

Several Hawaii schools already have strict dress policies, but the issue has proved particularly divisive at Punahou.

The school tried and failed in recent years to enforce an existing dress code that angered some students and parents who worried about stifling individuality.

More recently the school has been considering other options in discussions involving parents and faculty, said Laurel Bowers Husain, director of development and communications at the school.

Parents voiced strongly divergent views on the issue yesterday.

"I'm totally in favor of it," said Marita Biven, whose daughter is a seventh-grader at the school.

"Economically it's a leveler, socially it's a leveler and academically it's a leveler because it makes kids focus," said Biven, who added that it would make it easier for parents to "police" what their kids wear.

But another Punahou parent, Laurel Schuster, said the idea of prescribed dress was misguided.

"If they think this will solve the problem, they're wrong," she said. "And it's wrong to punish an entire group because a few feel the need to walk around half naked."

Babin admitted that some girls show "too much cleavage or rear," but does not feel that there is resulting peer pressure on other girls to dress the same way.

"I don't really notice it, but apparently it's offensive to the faculty," she said.