Should a school have the right to impose a dress code — for parents?

Brett Singer at Parentdish.com blogged about a parents-in-pajamas crackdown in the U.K., where the head of a primary school issued a terse letter after about 50 parents routinely began appearing in pajamas each morning to drop off their kids. Describing the adults as “slovenly and rude,” the school head called the practice of wearing sleepwear in the daytime “disrespectful to the school and a bad example to set to children.”

Some Parentdish readers confessed to the same sartorial sin at home in the U.S. “I wear my PJs to drop off my son to school,” wrote one mother. “I am too busy helping him get ready to worry about myself.” Another wrote, “Almost all of the women at my kid’s school, including myself, wear PJs and slippers….I like to be comfortable.” Others came down squarely on the side of the British headmaster. “It is about teaching our kids respect, responsibility, and personal hygiene,” wrote one parent. Showing up in pajamas is “inappropriate,” another said, but “I don’t think it’s the school’s right to make it a rule.”

Tell us what you think: Should a school have a say in what parents can wear? Is it irresponsible for adults to wear pajamas in public?