(Credit: Austin Independent School District)
A new school year is here and kids are heading back to class on Tuesday morning in the Austin Independent School District. Students can expect some changes this year, including a new dress code, as well as new names for a handful of AISD campuses.
After more than a year of sometimes contentious debate, AISD eventually settled on its new dress code, which the school board believes will be much more inclusive. Whereas in the past, students could not show things like bra straps or underwear, the rules have been relaxed for the 2019-2020 school year to allow those articles of clothing to be visible. Teachers and staff will no longer be allowed to question a student’s choice of clothing because the school board has decided that to be a form of ‘shaming.’ Female students have argued that it was sexist for teachers to question, and ultimately inspect their clothing in front of other students to make sure it fell in line with the AISD’s previous dress code.
While AISD has relaxed some of its dress code, articles of clothing with profanity, sexual content, or depictions of violence and gang activity will still be banned.
AISD also begins the new year with fresh names for four of its campuses that had previously been named for historical figures with ties to the Confederacy. The changes include:
- The Anita Ferrales Coy Facility (formerly the John T. Allan Facility)
- Sarah B. Lively Middle School (formerly Fulmore Middle School)
- Juan Navarro Early College High School (formerly Sidney Lanier High School)
- Northeast Early College High School (formerly John H. Reagan High School)
Ths issue of changing the school names was also quite controversial, particularly in the case of Lanier High School. AISD Trustee Ann Teich argued in favor of keeping the name, not to honor any memory of the Confederacy, but because there was widespread support for the school pride that the name had invoked over the years.
“We have teachers at Lanier who are alumni of Lanier and they don’t want the name changed,” Teich said back in March. “We have students who are very proud of the name ‘Lanier,’ and they don’t care about ‘Sidney.’”
The schools join Robert E. Lee Elementary in the name change. It was the first school to find itself at the center of the Confederate name controversy back in 2016. The board eventually settled on the name Russell Lee Elementary in honor of the Depression-era photographer and founding University of Texas professor.
AISD police are expected to be increasing their patrols inside of school zones. Since 2016, when the district first rolled out its new stop arm camera program, more than 54,000 tickets have been writen by AISD police alone. 16,000 of those tickets were issued to drivers last year.