Stash the Heelys in the closet, guzzle the energy drinks outside of school and leave the toy weapons at home.

Those are a few of the new policies Dane County school districts will be enforcing this fall, as outlined in changes to student handbooks.

While most of the changes relate to mundane topics such as student fees and attendance, rules about what students wear and can bring to school are getting more specific.

The policies reflect how schools are trying to adapt to societal changes, said Miles Turner, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators.

"It's a delicate balance that districts walk in trying to ensure safety of students and the integrity of academic environment and students' rights," he said.

Some changes, especially in what clothing is acceptable, tend to be cyclical, with each generation looking for ways to push the limit.

"I was a school principal in the '60s and '70s," Turner said. "We had battles back then with skirt lengths that left nothing to the imagination."

The latest version of that appears in a change to this year's student handbook at the Verona Area Core Knowledge Charter School, where inseams of shorts must be at least 4 inches. Also, single-strap shirts and pajama pants are now banned.

The updates bring the school in line with the rest of the district, said Robert McNallie, charter school principal.

At Oregon High School, the handbooks have been updated this year to say "rear ends or cleavage and undergarments should not be visible," said Associate Principal Kyle Cherry, adding "they're called 'undergarments' because they're supposed to be under something."

At Verona elementary schools, students can no longer sport Heelys, stiff athletic shoes with built-in wheels that can be popped out, allowing the user to skate along — or fall and crack his head.

Cooper and Avery Fossum of Fitchburg, who will be going into third and sixth grades, respectively, at Verona's Stoner Prairie Elementary School, have heelies but hadn't planned to make the shoes part of their fall wardrobe.

"I don't wear them to school because I play sports and heelies would be too heavy and hard to run in," Avery Fossum said.

Cell phone policy

For years, districts have banned cell phones at the younger grades and required them to be stored in lockers of middle- and high-school students during the day. They tend to be disruptive, can be used to cheat on tests and some newer models can take photos in places like locker rooms where cameras aren't allowed.

But in Verona, officials have come to accept that mobile phones have a place even among young students.

"We allow them as long as they're off during the school day and kept in the locker," Todd Brunner, principal at Verona's Sugar Creek Elementary School, said of a policy added this fall to district elementary school handbooks. However the phones are still discouraged and parents must OK them with the school, he said.

Jonah Mandell, who will be in fifth grade at Stoner Prairie, said he'd like a cell phone, but his dad, Josh Mandell, doesn't see the need.

"I don't think at any age (cell phones) need to be in schools," Josh Mandell said. "That's what teachers are for."

Gum, energy drinks

Some of the changes don't concern what students put on their bodies so much as what they put in them.

At Lodi Middle School, a new policy is putting a stop to chewing gum and swigging energy drinks such as Monster or Amp.

The gum ban has long been an unwritten rule in Lodi, as it is in many other districts. The ban on energy drinks was imposed last year and is being included in the handbook this fall to comply with the district's wellness policy, said David Dyb, middle school principal.

But the district isn't being too strict — soda will still be on hand at special events like school dances, he said.

Also this fall, snacks at the school will come from vending machines that dispense only healthy items such as milk, cheese, yogurt and granola bars, he said.

Before the change was made, he said, "kids who needed something after school ... tended to load up on non-healthy (snacks)."

'Fear factor'

Other schools are taking steps to increase school safety, banning look-alike weapons in addition to the real thing.

Any student possessing weapons — real or not — will be suspended and referred for expulsion, according to handbooks going to elementary school students in the Sun Prairie School District this fall. The ban on toy weapons is already a policy at the district's middle and high school.

"I think anything that eliminates that fear factor or that exaggeration of reality is probably what we're trying to avoid," said Kathi Klaas, principal at the district's Horizon Elementary School.

Usually when a student brings a fake weapon to school, it's clearly a toy, Klaas said. However, "some of the things I've taken from kids don't look at all like any toy I ever saw," she said.

But it's pocket knives that tend to be the bigger problem, she said.

"That is probably the most common thing that I have will turned in to me," she said. Often, she said, elementary students aren't intending to scare anyone; they just have no idea the item isn't appropriate for school.

In Stoughton, which put surveillance cameras on all buses and outside school buildings last year, a new policy alerts students, parents and guardians that they should not have "a legitimate expectation of privacy with respect to conduct visually recorded on district electronic surveillance equipment."

Like all other districts in the state, Stoughton is also required to have a policy in place by Oct. 1 banning cameras and video recording equipment in locker rooms, dressing areas and bathrooms.

ID card experiment

Amid all the items being banned, Verona High School plans to experiment this year with requiring students to carry one thing: a student ID card. In the fall of 2009, students will be given lanyards to display the card.

Administrators are using this year to get the school's 1,450 students used having the ID on hand before making it an official policy, said Pam Hammen, the high school's interim principal.

"We want to be able to readily recognize people who are in the building who are not our students or not our staff," Hammen said. The IDs are already needed to ride the bus and get into sporting events, and this fall they will be scanned to check out library books and pay for lunches.

Emilie Homan, a Verona High School junior and student council co-president, said while wearing the ID may be good for safety, she wonders what the consequences will be for not wearing it.

"It's going to be really hard to enforce," she said. "I have friends who lost their ID the day they got it."

Homan foresees another potential problem: ID pictures aren't always the most flattering, and some students might balk at having to display it around their neck.

"I just don't know if people will wear them to school."

— State Journal reporter Devin Rose contributed to this report