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GREENSBORO - Jack Kraemer reluctantly went along with the new policy at Northeast High. He even helped write the rules, although he had his doubts.

Serious doubts.

It sounded silly to him. How could the clothes on a kid's back really make a difference in school?

One week into the school year, Kraemer has changed his mind about Northeast's brand new Standard Mode Of Dress rules.

"I don't completely understand it, but if it works, who cares why?" said Kraemer, Northeast's media coordinator. "After working with teenagers for 32 years, nothing should surprise me anymore."

Six public schools in Guilford County added SMOD policies this year - Northeast and Ragsdale High, Ferndale, Jamestown and Welborn Middle and Parkview Elementary - and Smith High expanded its policy to cover freshmen and sophomores.

They join 30 other Guilford County schools that had dress rules in

2007-08.

SMOD rules vary from school to school, but they typically mandate a collared shirt paired with khaki, black or blue pants, shorts or skirts. The pants must fit in the waist, and skirts and shorts must be at least knee-length.

The goals are to cut down on peer pressure associated with fashion, and also head off behavioral problems.

Northeast principal Anitra Walker said the dress policy has made an immediate difference at her school.

"We're going to knock on wood, but it's gone much better than we even could've imagined," Walker said. " Our kids are much more pleasant in the hallways. We get the 'yes ma'am' and 'no ma'am,' and honestly we didn't expect to get all that with SMOD."

Walker said some kids who were shy and withdrawn have come out their shells, and she thinks it's because of the clothes they're wearing.

"Last year, some of those kids wouldn't say hello if you passed them in the hall. Now, they're speaking up and participating in class discussions," Walker said.

Walker said school staff members were privately speculating on the first-day response to the new policy.

"We had just 49 kids (in violation), and only three of them did not have on SMOD at all. The other 46 were either missing a belt or wearing the wrong color shirt."

That's 49 out of 1,200 students, Walker said, and violations are easily fixed with the school's "SMOD closet."

"We've got shirts, pants, belts. We're sending kids there, and they swap out clothes (for the day)," Walker said.

There were no in-school suspensions related to the new SMOD policy among Ragsdale's 1,471 students, assistant principal Martin McDonald said.

"Most of the issues we did have, it wasn't kids wanting to make a statement, it was strictly issues of misinterpreting it," he said. "We had some kids who didn't have belts, or wore green, which is not one of our colors."

Ragsdale's dress policy is more flexible than some, McDonald said, and it's hard to gauge it's effect.

"The beginning of the year, you always have a honeymoon period," McDonald said. "We'll know more in a few weeks."

Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills@news-record.com