Spencer board approves first reading of fitness center dress code

By Valorie Brecht The Spencer School Board has begun the process of updating its fitness center dress code to help ensure that using the fitness center is a positive experience for all users.

“We’ve been getting more and more notifications, comments if you will, from people utilizing the fitness center. The attire of some that are participating there is making others feel very uncomfortable,” said District Administrator Mike Endreas. “There were complaints of people not being properly covered.”

Specifically, fitness center users complained about others that wore wrestling singlets or see-through mesh tops to work out.

The board agreed to take another look at the dress code since there had been complaints about it, and unanimously approved revising Policy 830.1 Rule School District of Spencer Fitness Center Guidelines.

After that motion, the board got into a discussion of what clothing should be deemed acceptable versus unacceptable. Endreas reached out to local school districts that have a fitness center dress code to use as a guideline for Spencer. Athletic director Nick Viegut, middle/high school principal Jason Gorst and Endreas talked to other schools and came up with a draft that was a compilation of Abbotsford and Marathon’s dress codes.

In looking at the Spencer draft, “my only concern is that first bullet point,” said board member Sarah Krause. “It says, ‘No clothing that may be inappropriate in a family environment is allowed.’ I feel that’s very generic.”

“What one person thinks is family-friendly, another person might not,” agreed board member Becky Gorst.

“I think the goal there was to leave it somewhat openended so there is some discretion there that you could utilize and not to pin ourselves into a corner either,” said Endreas. “We do talk about, the rules for Spencer students and the board-adopted dress code are always applicable, so we do have that verbiage — inappropriate, demeaning, beer logos — we do have that as part of our school-adopted dress code.”

Krause recommended copy-pasting the student dress code directly into the fitness center policy, so there was no question about what was and wasn’t allowed. Endreas agreed to do that.

Jason Gorst mentioned that it was common at fitness centers, especially on college campuses, to require users to wear shirts with sleeves, in order to prevent skin contact with the equipment. It would also prevent a person from wearing only a singlet.

“So that is an option, but we chose to not put that (a sleeves requirement) in there,” said Jason Gorst.

“We do have, ‘Sleeveless shirts are allowed, if hemmed,’” said Endreas.

The intention of that rule was to prevent people from wearing cutoff shirts that show their torso. The board decided the Spencer draft was sufficient on that topic.

Becky Gorst brought up one wording concern. The policy referenced that no undergarments should be visible.

“For girls, if you wear a tank top, your sports bra will likely be visible,” she said. “If we’re not going to enforce that, then I should we should change the policy.”

The administrators thought the intention of the “no undergarments visible” rule was to prevent people from wearing their shorts so low that others could see their underwear. However, the dress code also specifies that “shorts must be worn at waist level” so that is already covered. The board agreed to remove the part stating that no undergarments should be visible.

Board member Jordan Buss made a motion, seconded by Becky Gorst, to approve the first reading of Policy 830.1 Rule Fitness Center Guidelines for Proper Attire. That was approved unanimously.

The policy will have to come back to the board for a second reading and be approved before it becomes the offi cial policy of the Spencer School District. That will take place at the next school board meeting, April 17 at 6:30 p.m.

Board member Barb Wesle also asked how the rules would be enforced.

“A lot of it has been word of mouth. In fact, as an example, we asked that people bring in earbuds and we had people bringing in radios, and I’ll call the person and ask them to stop, and if they don’t, I’ll just shut their fob off and they usually get a hold of me and ask what’s going on and we have that conversation then,” said Endreas. “Normally I go a 30-day first offense, so we shut the fob off for 30 days and then kind of keep track of it that way. A lot of the enforcement is word of mouth, and we do have cameras, so I verify the situation via camera and proceed accordingly.”

Information about the Spencer School District fitness center is available at spencer.k12.wi.us/resources/fitnesscenter.