The Jeff Davis Parish School Board’s Policy Committee did not take any official action Tuesday regarding potential changes to the school district’s dress code.

The discussion was prompted by Board Member Paula Lejeune’s request last month to consider allowing visible logos on shirts and pants.

Lejeune said school administrators had approached her about removing the logo restrictions on school uniforms, pointing out the inconsistency of allowing logos on socks and shoes, but not on shirts.

“The logo that can’t be on a shirt can be on socks or shoes,” Lejeune said.

Lejeune said she had reached out to other parishes, and they have similar restrictions. However, two of the parishes have started allowing jeans.

“And there is no logo restriction on the jeans, and they have not seen an increase in bullying with allowing that,” she said.

Current dress code policy does not allow any exposed logos or labels on shirts or pants. However, there are no logo restrictions on shoes or backpacks.

“The main problem that we’ve had, whenever we were coming up with the dress code, was let’s focus on the pants and top,” Superintendent John Hall said.

Hall acknowledged that while individual schools have their own cultures and dress codes, he is not aware of any that allow students to “wear anything they want.”

Regarding logos, his primary concerns include the timing of any changes, as local merchants have already placed uniforms orders. He also highlighted potential issues with the size and nature of allowed logos, including the possibility of inappropriate or custom branding.

“It’s not that we can’t figure this out, but I can’t figure it out before the beginning of school,” Hall said. “I can’t get my principals to understand it before the beginning of school. It will be unfair to them and be unfair to our parents and it’s going to be unfair to the students because they are not going to have a clear understanding of what they can and can’t wear if we just say logos are okay.”

Hall asked the board to postpone any decision until he could gather input from school principals.

He also expressed reservations about opening the dress code policy to further changes, such as allowing jeans, and stated that he had not received any concerns regarding the current dress code this year.

Board member David Doise voices his opposition to the proposed change, suggesting it could lead to competition among students. He stated his preference for all students in Jeff Davis Parish being able to wear similar attire.

The committee meeting concluded with no immediate changes to the dress code policy.