GUILDERLAND — On Tuesday, the school board here approved a policy change that will allow girls, with their coaches’ say-so, to wear sports bras without shirts for practice.

The vote was 8 to 1 with Judy Slack, who remained silent during the lengthy discussion, casting the sole dissenting vote.

The subject had been broached last May by two girls, then in ninth-grade, on the Guilderland High School track team. The athletes, Olivia Mair and Angelica Sofia Parker, each independently wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor and sent the same missives to the school board.

“I was really happy about it,” Mair said this week of the school board’s decision. “Other people on my team and at school are happy about it too.”

“I feel empowered and I hope other students do too,” said Parker.

She also said, “If you want to change the world, you need to make noise. The squeaky wheel really does get the grease, and The Altamont Enterprise helped us to be heard!”

The letter-writers were responding to emailed instructions from their coaches last spring saying, “Athletes are not allowed to practice in only their sports bras because the school dress code states that students must ‘Ensure that underwear is covered by outer clothing’ …  Sports bras must be covered by another article of clothing. Please understand that this is not a team policy, it’s a school policy that the administration is asking us to enforce.”

The Enterprise subsequently editorialized on the need for a policy change. 

While the board’s policy committee discussed the subject, it was not raised at another school board meeting until Oct. 3, when several board members commented on the proposed changes, which had been submitted for their review.

The Enterprise reported on the discussion on Oct. 6 in anticipation of the Oct. 17 vote, and a week later the Albany Times Union ran a near-duplicate story on the Oct. 3 board discussion.

The current dress code still says among other requirements that underwear must be covered by outer clothing, adding parenthetically, “visible waistbands and straps are not violations.”

However, a section has been added, titled “Specific Activity Dress Codes” that says, “The District recognizes that certain extracurricular activities may have different attire expectations” and goes on to list a series of examples.

This includes “sports bras for outdoor sports practices” along with such items as “costumes for plays” or “swimsuits for swimming.”

“Once the student is no longer actively participating in such activities, they must continue to comply with the District’s standard dress code requirements,” the policy says, adding, “to the extent any coach, teacher, or staff seeks to establish an activity and/or weather specific dress code, it must be shared in advance in writing with Building Administration for review.”

Public comment

Board member Blanca Gonzalez-Parker, the mother of one of the letter writers and a member of the board’s policy committee, had told the board on Oct. 3 that she has heard from a few students opposed to the policy change with concerns about body shaming or, having to cover up for religious reasons, perhaps feeling further socially isolated.

At the Oct. 17 meeting, Elizabeth Floyd Mair, mother of the other letter writer, responded during the public comment session, “We can’t make decisions about the dress code based on the traditions of any religion” and also: “In high school, there are myriad ways that a student can feel body shamed; why regulate just this one, which is a health, not a fashion, issue?”

Coach Julianne Scanlan also spoke to the board as an “advocate for the boys’ team.”

“It is very hot and I ask these boys to go out and run 60 minutes, which sometimes translates to nine miles for some of my top athletes …,” she said. “It’s inappropriate for them to be wearing cotton T-shirts.”

For safety’s sake, Scanlon said, “I would ask that, at the coaches’ discretion, that we can say to the boys, ‘You can take your shirts off to run.’”

Perhaps responding to a comment made during the Oct. 3 discussion by Superintendent Marie Wiles that her administrative team has reached consensus that “what is acceptable for games should be similar to what they use for practice,” Scanlan noted that the racing singlets worn in competition cost $50 to $70 apiece, which would be too expensive for families to afford for practices.

Wiles had also said consensus was reached that sports attire shouldn’t “creep into the school day” as it already has and that “not every student would choose to wear a sports bra.” But Wiles noted that school dress code is a matter of board policy and administrators would enforce whatever was adopted.

School board President Seema Rivera also read several letters to the board, each favoring the policy change. Catherine Smitas, M.D., the parent of two runners, wrote that female cross-country runners are at double the risk of any other high school athlete for heat-related illnesses.

She wrote that runners, both in practice and competition, are often not visible to coaches and that the  standard of care is submersion, a cooling tub, is rarely readily available. She recommended that the school, with input from medical professionals, re-evaluate the maximum safe heat index.

“Regardless of gender, students should be permitted to remove their shirts while training on hot days,” Smitas concluded. “This is a safety issue. Requiring an overheated athlete to keep a sweaty cotton shirt on their body is cruel.”

A group of eight parents — Judy Swierczewski, Tim Sullivan, Marilyn Anderson, Amelia Tramontano, Brian Tramontano, Chelsea Dorner, Candace Casucci, and Jessie Carroll — signed a letter asking, “Are we inspiring girls to achieve their highest potential by imposing this sort of structural violence in them?

“What does it say if boys are allowed to take their shirts off when they’re overheated from strenuous exercise, but girls are not extended the same option to cool off? This unequal treatment is even more damaging when the cycle of structural violence is reinforced by higher ranking women and to those of lower status.”

Finally, Beth C. Martinez, a parent; a member of the district’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee; and a local education director for the Anti-Defamation League, wrote to the school board, “From a young age, we teach our children to have bodily autonomy and to advocate for what they are comfortable and uncomfortable with. I see this decision as an extension of continuing to encourage autonomy for female athletes over their bodies.”

As an educator for a civil-rights organization, Martinez said, “I can confidently say that students who need accommodations for religious purposes would not begrudge others the right to decide for their own bodies.”

She also wrote, “as a plus-size woman” herself, “I personally may or may not feel comfortable removing my shirt, but it would not be right for me to decide this for others.”

Board views

As the board members had a sometimes heated discussion on the policy, Rivera said she didn’t want to make changes that would necessitate it going back to the committee again.

“Personally,” she said, “I think this is ridiculous that we have to vote on this …. Students should be allowed to wear what they want when they’re working out.”

“I think we need to be clear that boys can go without their shirts,” said Gonzalez-Parker.

Board member Kim Blasiak said, “I think right now, the way it reads is why we have seen comments on Facebook about not sexualizing our students and why we’ve received letters mostly from people about the girls being objectified.”

Blasiak said she wasn’t against girls wearing sports bras or boys taking off their shirts. “If it’s not a big deal, then why mention sports bras at all?” she asked.

Blasiak said she was concerned about well-meaning team captains, trying to promote unity, calling on everyone to wear sports bras.

“I’ll be honest,” said Blasiak, “and this is a very personal thing as someone who’s in recovery for an eating disorder, you cannot just tell someone, ‘Oh, you look great; it’s fine.’ It’s in them”

Blasiak urged, “Because we mentioned sports bras and not men without shirts, take sports bras out and let the coaches decide.” 

Board member Nathan Sabourin, who serves on the policy committee, said, “When we work on these policies, we’re balancing a lot of plates.” He went on to name concerns from students, parents, district administrators, and staff who have said “this is so hard to enforce already.”

Sabourin attributed public reaction to “some poor reporting … I read those articles,” he said, which did “not pay attention to what we discussed in the meetings we had.”

Sabourin went on, “It’s the news. You’re going to sensationalize everything.”

Rivera said that no policy would address every possibility, such as boys being allowed to remove their shirts, and so examples were used.

“As long as boys can take off their shirts,” said Gonzalez-Parker as she voted in favor of the policy change.

Board member Judy Slack, who voted against the policy, told The Enterprise this week that her vote was because of an email board members had received from a doctor saying that students should practice in whatever they wear for competition to acclimate themselves “because it may be hot on the day of the race.”

Slack said she didn’t speak during the board discussion because all the board members had gotten the same email and “I wasn’t going to change anybody’s mind.”

“We can’t cover every scenario,” said board member Katie DiPierro of the new policy, “but because we’ve had people come forward specifically addressing that, it was a discussion to have.”

Activists’ insights

Those who came forward — Parker and Mair — had more to share about their experience. 

“Whenever a coach would yell at us for taking off our shirts, everyone would get annoyed,” said Mair.

She said it was particularly hot in the weight room and also when running on the track around the new turf field at the high school, made of plastic grass. "It feels like the turf absorbs a lot of heat and makes it hotter on the track," said Mair.

“I’m happy that writing that letter made a change,” said Mair. “I wasn’t sure they would care,” she said of school board members, “because it was just me and one other person.” She added that, although just two team members wrote letters, "a lot of our team members were also in favor of changing the rule."

“I want to thank you so much for listening to us and taking our letter to the editor and arguments seriously,” said Parker.

“I think athletes will feel more comfortable, and hopefully, students who notice issues impacting them directly, will feel like they can speak up, and not feel intimidated,” she went on, adding that she plans to write a letter soon about  holding sports practices on holidays and days off.

The process affected her personally, she said, explaining “When my mom had to decide how to vote, she had to consider all of the opinions shared with her … and that was really hard. I get it. She was trying to be fair, but it was still difficult.”

Parker felt that her mother supported her even as, being a school board member, she was “dealing with her own struggle. She’d say, ‘OK, mom hat is on now.’”

Parker also said that she had learned from the process that “it’s OK to have a difference of opinion, on any topic. You don’t want to wear a sports bra, that’s A-OK.”