SALAMANCA — Changes to the Salamanca City Central School District’s code of conduct were presented to the Board of Education on June 15, but the board says there’s still work to do before it’s approved.

Each year, the school board is required to approve a district code of conduct once any pertinent changes are made and have been approved, explained Lynn Magiera, assistant high school principal.

Opportunities are given to community stakeholders — including students and building administrators — so their voices can be heard, Magiera said. She said a student group brought up some changes to the dress code to be looked at and met with district officials to go over their input.

“They didn’t just come in just with complaints but with their suggestions and some ways to reword some of the information to make things more gender neutral,” she said.

Under the dress code, Magiera said the main changes had to do with verbiage referring to articles of clothing such as tops, bottoms, footwear and make-up without specifics towards male or female students.

“Instead of saying shorts must be a modest length, the students didn’t like using the word ‘modest,’ so we changed it to ‘mid-thigh,’” she said as an example. Magiera said they also changed not allowing “outlandish makeup” to not allowing “face paint.”

A new addition to the dress code was explaining what students can do to comply with it without being sent home, Magiera said. She said the students wanted it written in the dress code so the same options apply to everyone

Some of the options include changing into or covering up with something else, turning an inappropriate t-shirt inside out, wearing a school t-shirt provided by the district or contacting a parent to bring in appropriate clothing, Magiera explained. If a student refuses to comply with those options, then further administrative action may be taken.

Another new addition to the code of conduct pertained to general expectations for remote learning environments, such as live stream education sessions on Zoom, which came up last summer when school had to be remote during the coronavirus pandemic, Magiera said.

“We looked at what the expectations should be at each building level, and that was shared with our teachers, students, families and caregivers at the beginning of the school year and throughout the school year,” she said. These expectations were condensed and put in the code of conduct.

Moving forward, Magiera said data will continue to be collected and evaluated to determine needed additions/changes to the code of conduct from administrators, student government, students, parents, staff and the public throughout the year.

Board member Meghan McCune said the school board has not been meeting consistently as the policy committee, which approves the code changes, but that they should meet soon to discuss the changes before approving it.

“Having seen the first version of this when I first got on the board, there are some definite improvements and changes that have been made,” she said. “But there are still some really big things I think we need to look at and fix.”

Superintendent Robert Breidenstein said approval of the code changes was on the agenda, but was pulled off so the board could discuss them. He said the changes should be up for approval at the first meeting in July and they’ll still have time to get a new student handbook printed before classes resume in September.

“This might be a great opportunity to approve a rudimentary framing of the document and then spend some time talking with students and the community more in depth to try to streamline this,” he said.

Board member Kerry John agreed with McCune and Breidenstein, noting not everyone is going to read the entire 29-page code and the board needs to make sure they get the changes correct.

Breidenstein noted that the code of conduct is not only for students but anyone who enters school buildings or is on school property.

IN OTHER BUSINESS, the next two phases of the ongoing capital project are expected to be consolidated into one phase, the board learned Tuesday.

Julian Schopp, from Turner Construction, said because a new architect was hired by the district for the rest of the project, the work planned for phases 3.3 and 3.4 will be bid together.

The work included there is the high school/middle school track and field renovations, new district office addition, Prospect Elementary classroom addition and other miscellaneous renovations throughout the district, Schopp said.

Breidenstein said the district has been working with Stieglitz Snyder Architecture, holding ongoing meetings with the architects and various district officials. He said the architects continue to develop and adjust the designs for phase 3.3, notably the district office addition.

“They’ve been very receptive to the needs of the athletic department and the physical ed department on the main campus site work that’s being done and the improvements over at Prospect,” Breidenstein added.

In the meantime, Turner continues to finish the work at Veterans Memorial Park. Schopp said about 75 percent of items have been checked and cleared with the entire site expected to be wrapped up by the end of July.

Board members noted a couple of issues with weeds growing in the grass areas, doors not locking or closing correctly and lights in bathrooms not coming on. Schopp said Turner would look into the issues.

(Contact managing editor Kellen Quigley at kquigleysp@gmail.com)