Exercising Her Rights Middle-Schooler Fights Mandated Pe Uniforms

Andrea McGee, 12, stands out in the crowd at Chase Middle School’s gymnasium.

In a whirl of matching gray shorts and T-shirts, she’s the one sporting a colorful Tweety Bird shirt and blue New York Knicks shorts.

She’s also the one touching off a flurry of meetings among Spokane School District 81 attorneys, administrators, teachers and board members.

McGee, a seventh-grader at the South Hill school, refuses to wear the $12 uniform her classmates are required to don for gym class. The school’s strict rule, she says, cramps her individuality - not to mention her constitutional rights.

“Kids are supposed to have a free education,” said Andrea, who also objects to the $12 fee. “You shouldn’t have to pay to get good grades.”

Her parents, Dan and Joey McGee, echo Andrea’s sentiments and are threatening to sue if the school district doesn’t back down and change the uniform policy.

“Andrea still gets dirty looks,” said Joey McGee. “She’s still labeled as the renegade.”

Spokane schools had no district-wide policy on uniforms before the McGees began complaining about Chase’s uniform requirements. But after the family threatened a lawsuit, the district adopted a policy this fall: Each school can decide on its own whether to require uniforms.

Chase Principal Alison Olzendam said she has plenty of reasons to require P.E. students to dress alike.

Students aren’t tempted to steal one another’s gym clothes, she said. And the rule creates equity in at least one class.

“Everybody looks the same,” said Olzendam. “Every student in there participates on an equal playing field regarding how they look.”

Andrea’s PE teacher, Lorri Klaue, likes uniforms because she doesn’t have to spend classroom time deciding whether students are wearing proper clothing.

“I didn’t like the power struggle of, ‘Is it appropriate?”’ she said.

Money isn’t an issue, Olzendam said, because the school supplies uniforms for children who can’t afford them.

Andrea said she is following the example of her older sister, Sandra, who dropped out of gym class at Chase last year rather than wear a uniform.

“I think (uniforms are) good for school spirit,” said Sandra, 15, now a student at Ferris High School. “But there’s also your individuality, which overrules the uniform thing. You take away a person’s individuality, and there’s nothing.”

So far, administrators at Chase have tried to quietly overlook Andrea’s refusal to wear the uniform. After all, said Olzendam, the district’s new policy allowing schools to make their own uniform decisions became effective after school started.

Andrea continues to participate in gym, her favorite class.

But Olzendam said she’s not sure she’ll make the exception next semester.

This morning, the McGees plan to take the issue to Chase’s site council - a decision-making group consisting of parents, teachers and administrators.

“I think those kinds of decisions really have to be developed school by school and community by community,” said Nancy Fike, school board president.

After several meetings, administrators decided the dress code was worth standing up for, despite the threat of a lawsuit.

A 1994 state law allows districts to have schools with special standards, including uniforms, said Greg Stevens, attorney for the district.

“We think we have a very strong legal position.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo