Student, Parents Debate Coat Issue Sandpoint School Board Leaves Dress Code Intact; Trench Coats Can Stay

The trench coat contingent from Sandpoint High School attended a school board meeting Wednesday to stand up for their right to wear long, baggy coats to class.

One student in a trench coat and a handful of parents called on the school board to reject a request to ban the coats.

The school board did not act on the request, or even discuss it Wednesday, thereby leaving the dress code unchanged.

The request to ban the coats came from about a dozen parents who consider the coats a safety issue because the student assailants in the Columbine school shootings last year in Colorado hid their weapons underneath their trench coats.

“We have heard from our own children of their uneasiness with this,” the concerned parents wrote in a letter to the school board in November.

Marsha Wanous spoke on behalf of the ban Wednesday night, arguing that trench coats are disruptive to the educational process because of the associations they now bring to school.

“We are not targeting particular students or saying they present a threat,” she said.

But Diane Hansinger suggested that if the board was inclined to approve such a ban, that it be made more general to include all overcoats.

“Making more of a blanket kind of policy would be fair,” she said.

The few students who wear the coats indicated that they feel singled out by the proposed ban. Three students in trench coats were at Wednesday’s meeting, but only one addressed the board.

Jennessa Frengle, a junior in cateye glasses, said if the school were to ban trench coats because they can conceal weapons, then why not ban small purses, too, because they can conceal handguns.

And, if some local students are frightened by the sight of minorities, “perhaps we should ban new black students,” Frengle continued, taking the argument to its extreme.

“It’s a shame this kind of energy doesn’t go into new facilities or teachers,” Frengle said. She suggested that the concerned parents get to know the kids who wear trench coats.

“I’m not a violent person at all,” she said.

Sandpoint High School Principal A.C. Woolnough said the handful of students who would be affected by the change are not problem students.

But they do tend to be targeted for abuse by other students. For instance, Haven Van Heusen was thrown through a plate glass window during school last year by another student.

As Van Heusen, a senior in a long black trench coat and black leather boots, was interviewed by television reporters, Woolnough described him as “the most nonviolent, pacifistic kid I know.”

As they left the meeting, his mother, Deborah Van Heusen said, “Haven has worn this overcoat for years. … There are so many other issues that are more important than this.”