Penn Hills School Board passes dress code policy for members

Penn Hills School Board members have been called to attend meetings in their best dress going forward.

Members adopted a new code of conduct that includes a dress code requiring board members to wear “professional business attire.”

“We had (a dress code) when I first got on the board in 1998,” said board President Erin Vecchio. “We have board members coming in now in spandex pants and dirty clothes. They look like they’re coming in from off the street.”

For one board member, that’s true.

Devon Goetze, who has a doctorate in business, works as a director of housing services at the local nonprofit Auberle. Her job involves nontraditional hours either outside or sitting on the floors of homeless shelters, moving furniture into people’s homes, handing out supplies at homeless encampments, speaking with people in the streets and traveling to different communities to help those in need. This causes her to wear clothes that allow her the dexterity to do this work, such as T-shirts, sweatpants, jeans and sweatshirts.

“(The policy) feels very targeted,” Goetze said. “I do dress casual, but I have to. I can’t do my work in a business suit.”

School board meetings take place at 6 p.m. on the last Wednesday of each month. Goetze said most people on the board are retired and those who aren’t either work in offices or from home. She said she usually goes directly from work to the meetings and then back to work once the meeting ends.

Vecchio said the dress code was created with multiple board members in mind and was suggested during a state recovery plan meeting that all board members attended.

“We were told by the state in the recovery plan that we need a dress code,” Vecchio said. “We’re supposed to be representing the board and be setting an example for our kids.”

The policy states that dirty tennis shoes, flip flops, jeans, sweatpants and workout gear no longer are permitted. The policy states that suits, dress pants, skirts, blouses and dress shirts are acceptable. The policy passed in a 6-2 vote with board members Heather Broman and Goetze voting no.

“I had a job when I first started on the board,” Vecchio said. “I worked at the turnpike and wore a uniform. I changed clothes before the meeting so I don’t accept work as an excuse.”

Vecchio added there are some exceptions to the policy, including shoes such as Crocs and “dress shorts.”

“We’re adults. We’re supposed to dress like adults,” Vecchio said. “We’re not supposed to come to meetings in dirty clothes.”

Goetze said she first heard talk of the dress code right after a committee of the whole meeting on Valentine’s Day, when Vecchio emailed the members that she was going to introduce one. Goetze said Vecchio had commented several times before and after the meeting about Goetze’s outfit, a heart sweatshirt for the holiday and a pair of workout pants. Goetze said she found out March 22 the policy would be voted on when she was looking in the attachments of the agenda.

“It was almost hidden in a document,” Goetze said.

The dress code was detailed in an attached document paired with the last voting section of the agenda. The policy states that if a member of the board violates the dress code, they will be asked to leave the meeting to change clothes and be censured. Vecchio said censuring a member will include “public embarrassment.”

“We’re trying to embarrass the person into wearing the proper clothing,” Vecchio said.

Vecchio said that after multiple censures, other board members will write a letter to the Pennsylvania School Boards Association asking them to remove the offending member from office.

However, Mackenzie Christiana, senior manager of communications at the Pennsylvania School Boards Association noted in an email that the association is “not a regulatory body or state agency, and do not have authority to remove a member of a school board.”

According to Christiana, the association’s policy services helps board members keep up with the requirements for education in Pennsylvania by tracking state and federal laws, regulations and court decisions related to a school board’s governance responsibilities.

The association drafts policy guides and issues them to individual school boards. From there, school boards are asked to include their internal experts and consult with their school solicitor in any review and updating of board policies.

“If a PSBA policy guide does not address a particular topic, a school entity, based on their local needs and operations, will typically draft a policy with the assistance of their solicitor,” Christiana said in the email. “The policies are subsequently submitted to the local school board for official adoption or revision. For this reason, PSBA does not comment on locally adopted board policies.”

Goetze said she would try to follow the dress code, but wearing business attire to her job would not be safe for her and it would make her less approachable — both factors that success in her daily work depends on.

“I hope I get censured every single month because that means there’s more people off the streets that night,” Goetze said.

Goetze said she doesn’t see her attire as disrespectful and it doesn’t stop her from doing her job. She said she is a member of five other boards throughout multiple communities, and this is the first time that an issue with her clothing has been brought up.

“This is a classist policy,” Goetze said.

“People who wear uniforms to work — laborers, postal workers, even mechanics or fast-food workers — would be excluded from the board if they couldn’t change clothing.”

District Solicitor Bruce Dice did not respond to multiple voicemails asking for comment.