UPDATED: Chardon Students to Protest Albright’s Dress Code Concerns

September 15, 2022 by Amy Patterson

A group of adults standing on a corner to watch students file out of Chardon Schools Aug. 31 has raised a lot of hackles in the community.

Chardon High School Principal Doug Murray, Chardon Middle School Principal Adam Tomco, Superintendent Michael Hanlon and Chardon Schools Board of Education member Todd Albright were reportedly assessing student attire in response to Albright’s concerns over dress code violations, said board President Karen Blankenship in a statement Sept. 13.

Those present stood at the corner of Allynd Drive and North Street from approximately 2:45-3 p.m. that day, Blankenship said.

The intent behind the action has come under intense dispute as assumptions and questions spread like wildfire across social media and through the community via agitated phone calls and private messages.

“On Aug. 28, 2022, Mr. Albright contacted Dr. Hanlon by email to express his concerns about his perception of a lack of dress code enforcement at CMS and CHS,” Blankenship said in her statement. “Dr. Hanlon researched the concerns with both building principals and reported to the board members that the administrators indicated that the dress code, as found in the Student Code of Conduct, was being enforced.”

In an email to the Geauga County Maple Leaf Sept. 13, Albright said concern over the dress code did not originate with him, but with staff members, parents of students and highly regarded community members.

“I am an elected representative of the Chardon Local School District. When any concern is brought to me, I do not assume it’s false or liable and blow it off, I make every effort to handle it as I understand it should be to bring about satisfactory conclusions to each issue and to build or rather rebuild the reputation of the schools,” Albright said. “I view (Blankenship’s statement) as a validation that the board as a whole does not see community issues as I do or they do, and proof that yet another issue just simply isn’t one at all, but that everything is in place and working flawlessly like a Swiss watch in their minds.”

However, in a Sept. 12 post on Facebook, Sara Koch Haueter, a parent of Chardon students, characterized Albright’s request to observe students as being in the service of his own personal beliefs on morality.

“(He) stood on the corner of North Street and Allynd Drive off school property and after school hours to monitor and judge the clothing choices of our children, more specifically OUR daughters,” Haueter wrote. “From his voyeur corner, he proceeded to point out which girls he felt were inappropriately dressed. Although I do not have daughters, I am a woman who was once a teenage girl. I know how I would feel having a strange man watching me from the street corner as I walked home and point out to my principal that he thought my clothing choice was inappropriate. I would feel embarrassed and more importantly, violated.”

Albright was asked whether individual students were pointed out as violating the dress code, but did not respond to that question before press time. Those with knowledge of the situation say administrators present did not engage in discussion of student appearance.

Community Concern

While Albright did not provide information about the specific concerns brought to him, he did give examples in an interview with the Geauga Times Courier of dress code complaints he said make staff uncomfortable.

“(Students) walk around with bustiers, crop tops and white shirts with no bra that allow their areolas to be seen,” he said, adding he did not see any male students in violation of the dress code on Aug. 31.

“It doesn’t tend to be that way, although I know there are some young men who have shirts ripped all the way down the side to their shorts,” he said. “That is also a dress code violation.”

A public records request did produce what is apparently the initial complaint Albright brought to Hanlon. In a series of screenshots, a member of the community outlined her concerns to Albright.

Parents feel the dress code is not enforced at all, she said, adding she had heard “many comments about the principal (Murray) being concerned about posting his graphics rather than enforcing rules.”

Additionally, she had heard complaints that Chardon “has a big drug problem,” and wondered why athletes are not subjected to drug testing, she said in the complaint.

“I think, personally, that popularity over leadership is the method being employed in that regard and others,” Albright replied. “For instance, despite having a ‘no phones’ policy in place, they have now given an unofficial phone break to students.”

In an email, Hanlon said to date, administrators in the buildings and at the district level have reported zero complaints concerning dress code enforcement from staff, parents or community members, other than the aforementioned complaint from Albright.

The district’s dress code is laid out in the student handbook and asks pupils to weigh whether their clothing is both comfortable and appropriate. The dress code policy was updated this spring, with Albright joining the board in approving the current version of the policy, which states each principal is the arbiter of student dress and grooming in their building.

The policy also seeks to ensure only minimum and necessary restrictions on the exercise of a student’s “taste and individuality,” and directs staff to “enforce the school’s dress code in a nondiscriminatory and uniform manner, including without regard to whether a student is transgender or gender nonconforming.”

“Building administrators respond to student dress code referrals first with an informal response focused on addressing the reported issue. If a student continues to appear with repeated dress code violations, the process becomes formalized with disciplinary action documented by the administrator,” Hanlon said.

From the beginning of this school year to date, CHS, with 1,155 students, has addressed 10 dress code issues informally and documented seven disciplinary incidents involving repeat violations. The middle school, with 753 students in grades four through seven, has had seven informal dress code issues addressed, and zero disciplinary incidents related to the dress code.

One parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said confirmation of these figures should have been sufficient to put the issue to rest.

“The fact that a school board member felt it necessary to create a theatrical show at the expense of children is unsettling and extremely inappropriate,” the parent said. “I find it interesting that it was this same school board member who championed the cause of ‘parental rights’ on deciding whether children should wear masks or not.”

Dress code issues should be resolved between administration, the student and their parents, rather than subjecting students to “a grown man leering at them, singling them out in front of their peers by pointing at them and then deciding what he finds acceptable or not,” the parent said.

Students have planned a silent protest for Monday, after school hours, at North and North Hambden streets.

“This protest is just to say we are comfortable in our clothing, no one is complaining about it but you. You are making us more uncomfortable than we can be making anyone through our clothing,” said protest organizer and CHS student Devney Rich during a WKYC segment Sept. 14.

“My sister’s in the middle school. I know some of her friends have come home complaining to their parents like ‘this guy, he pointed us out, he was seriously on the street corner and it was like scary, they were intimidated,” she added.

On Sept. 16, Albright was a call-in guest on Rover’s Morning Glory, which airs mornings on WMMS. During the segment, which begins about an hour and 15 minutes into the show, Albright was asked whether he thinks meeting with administrators on the corner that day was strange.

“I’ll tell you, I think it was an unorthodox approach and given the response to things, I regret it,” he said. “But I think the issue, and the root of the issue, is real.”