School board is asked for policy to bar cross-dressing

O'FALLON, Mo. -- After a father chaperoned a fourth-grade field trip while dressed as a woman, some Francis Howell School District parents want the school system to establish conduct and dress codes for parents attending school-related functions.

But during a school board meeting Thursday night in this St. Louis suburb, board member Jon Bennett countered that "there are serious constitutional issues involved here" in the St. Charles County school system's forming any such policy.

"We're all disappointed in the problems that have come from this, and it is embarrassing," Bennett said. "But we can't control this man. We can't control anybody -- any parent in our district, and how they choose to dress.

At issue is a father, while supervising an Oct. 18 field trip of Castlio Elementary School fourth-graders, apparently having a woman's hairstyle and wearing makeup, a sweater, women's jeans and women's shoes.

Vickie McMichael, a fourth-grader's mother, brought the matter before the school board last month. During the Thursday night meeting that drew about 50 people, she asked the board to form a committee of parents, teachers and board members to draft behavior and dress guidelines for field-trip chaperones and volunteering parents at other school events.

Otherwise, she said, she wants the school to let her know any time an identified cross-dresser is in the building so she can pull her child from school.

Board president Donald Wescott said the board would not act until its attorneys decided what could be done.

In defense of the father, 54-year-old Marty Hodits, whose wife teaches at Castlio, said the man had been volunteering at school and attending parent-teacher conferences for at least eight years dressed as a woman.

"No one has said a word. No one has had a problem with him until now," Hodits said.