<p>Our district is implementing uniforms in some schools. Always “troubled” schools. Decision is top down, after enrollment.
As our family made a concious choice not to send our kids to schools with uniforms( as oldest pointed out after reading the dress code for a well respected private girls high school " no jeans with holes? That lets out my whole wardrobe!" * she worked with ponies after school, who tend to nip.*) I was wondering what others experience has been.</p>
<p>I don’t see the point of school uniforms in a public school (or any school, for that matter.) What do they mean? I think they are especially dumb if the staff doesn’t wear them. I sent my son to a charter that had a uniform policy. He didn’t care but I could never get anyone at the school to articulate why they had a uniform policy. </p>
<p>I think about 10% of the population thinks a lot about clothes and thinks other people think a lot about clothes and that 10% grows up to be the adults who impose uniform policies on school kids. </p>
<p>Uniform policies are not equalizers. School uniforms shift the burden of being different because your family can’t afford high priced clothes to being different because you don’t look good dressed up a like a golfer. </p>
<p>If a uniform is necessary, why can’t it be jeans and a T-shirt?</p>
<p>“I think about 10% of the population thinks a lot about clothes and thinks other people think a lot about clothes and that 10% grows up to be the adults who impose uniform policies on school kids.”</p>
<p>I do not think this is correct. I belong to the 10% of the population that thinks a lot about clothes, and I think uniforms are ridiculous. I even fought, although unsuccessfully, with the administration of one Jr High school to get rid of their Nazi prison camp like PE uniforms. Dress code is a different issue, especially in the areas where gang activity is high.</p>
<p>I did volunteer work in a public elementary school that adopted uniforms (any blue non-denim pants, any white collared shirt). They said most parents were against the policy before it was instituted, and the vast majority supported it at the end of the the first year. An important benefit to families was the lower cost of a school wardrobe (most purchased the items at Target and Old Navy). A surprising benefit to the school was increased attendance, and they theorized that some kids had previously skipped school rather than wear outfits again.</p>
<p>One hears a lot of anecdotal evidence that uniforms improve behavior or grades or attendance but is there any actual research on the subject?</p>
<p>Why just hand the schools an opportunity to create yet another set of arbitrary rules and enforce them in capricious ways just to prove that they are in power?</p>
<p>When my older child was in middle school, the PTA had to fight for YEARS to get the PE department to agree to have the teachers write only the student’s last name on the backs of the PE uniform shirts rather than the student’s full name. The PTA had requested this change so that the expensive uniforms could be handed down to younger siblings. </p>
<p>Then we moved to another district, where PE uniforms were used in middle school, but high schoolers were allowed to wear any shorts and t-shirts they wanted that were in the school colors for PE. At the high school my son attended, which drew students from two middle schools, those who came from middle school X were allowed to wear their middle school PE uniforms for high school PE but those from middle school Y were not because the uniforms had gray shirts, and gray wasn’t one of the high school’s colors (although black and white were).</p>
<p>I would not welcome the idea of giving people from either of these school systems control over what my kids would wear during the rest of the school day.</p>
<p>I hated uniforms. I had them in K-8. I’m not one that cares about how I dress, but I’ve literally been in tears because of them. I was around 5’8 when I started high school so I must not have been much shorter than that in eighth grade. needless to say, I grew a lot and my mom couldn’t afford to buy me new uniforms several times each year. Second hand shops and swaps never had any my size or were the wrong color/design. Traumatic enough to be the poor kid, but pile on the embarrassment of being sent home because your skirt wasn’t hitting the floor when you knelt… Ugh.</p>
<p>The best part about switching public school (besides the lack of nuns) was the freedom to wear what I wanted. Within reason. I’d be furious if they tried to implement these in public schools.</p>
<p>Many Florida public school districts have mandatory or voluntary uniform policies. Some districts have so many poor students who can’t afford ANY clothes that it just makes things easier for parents, students, and especially elementary and middle schools, to go with a uniform policy. When the policy is first introduced in districts there is usually much resistance but eventually most everyone ends up liking uniform policy.</p>
<p>I can tell you why the middle school students at the school where I work wear uniforms:</p>
<p>1) It equalizes things in a school with a vast range of incomes. </p>
<p>2) It’s cost effective for parents who can buy 3 pairs of khaki pants at target and be done.</p>
<p>3) It makes our kids easy to identify when out in the community. Our kids have PE and free time at local parks that other schools use too. They go on field trips to destinations with lots of other kids. Being able to pick out our kids in a crowd can be really useful.</p>
<p>4) It avoids issues of kids wearing clothing that signals gang affiliation.</p>
<p>5) It saves the administration effort when figuring out exactly where the limits lie. If you don’t allow curse words, what about those **** shirts? Where’s the line between a T-shirt advertising a movie, and one glorifying violence? How low cut a shirt is too low cut? None of these are issues with a uniform. </p>
<p>6) It’s free advertising. </p>
<p>In the city where I teach, uniforms are the norm in all but the wealthiest, majority white schools. We start uniforms in 6th, and I hear more requests for uniforms by lower grade parents, than I hear complaints from middle school parents. Parents who move to us from uniform schools tell us they like not having to plan what their child wears.</p>
<p>I went to schools with dress codes through the 12th grade. I have taught in schools with dress codes and schools with uniforms. (Actually, my high school had a uniform for girls, and only a dress code for us boys. Even then, I knew that was just plain wrong.)</p>
<p>I like uniforms, even though I didn’t think I would. (Kind of proving Lizard’s point, above.) The girls in the uniformed school where I taught mostly liked the uniform. It simplified the mornings for them. There wasn’t really that much consideration of what to wear today. (Is today a game day? If yes, I’ll wear my field hockey uniform. If no, I’ll wear…hmm…a green skirt or jumper with a white collared shirt, white or green socks or tights, and brown loafers or oxfords.)</p>
<p>I certainly like a school dress code, for purely strategic reasons. It gives the students something they can rebel against. But when they put one over on the system by being out of compliance with the dress code all day, there’s no real harm done.</p>
<p>One problem with uniforms: in middle school and high school, girls and their families try to get too many school years’ use out of the same uniform skirts. A skirt that fits a seventh grader in the seventh grade will not fit her the same way in the eleventh grade. I remember once being in a faculty meeting where one of my colleagues observed that many girls’ uniform skirts were revealing a lot more leg than the school had in mind. One of my colleagues suggested, “Well, why don’t we all just take a few minutes in Advisory and measure the girls’ uniform skirts?” (This was an all-girls school, in which I was one of 4 men on the faculty.) There was widespread agreement that this was a good idea until I chimed in, “Excuse me, [Headmistress], but are we really proposing that I should get a ruler and measure a teenage girl’s thigh? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that, and I’m not sure the girls in my Advisory will be, either!”</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind having to wear a uniform. To be honest, with the way some girls dress, a uniform would be easier on the eyes and less distracting.</p>
<p>Public schools in our area require uniforms. It was talked about for many years, without a decision being made to actually do it. Then, a local “church” sent all of the kids belonging to their congregation to school one day wearing Tshirts with an anti-Muslim slogan. Most of the schools involved sent the kids home, the church threatened to sue, and the uniform policy was voted in soon thereafter.</p>
<p>Some people can’t drive to Target and put out the money to buy three uniforms at one time, more if you have more than one kid in school. Some people don’t have washing machines to wash all those uniforms. Uniforms are not equalizers, they just shift the inequality to others.</p>
<p>Depends on the school & the policy/uniform. If it’s just blue non-denim pants & white collared shirts, that’s one thing. If it’s a particular uniform that you have to buy from a particular location at inflated prices, that is another. In any case, I can see where it could help reduce clothing costs & disparities a great deal. </p>
<p>Our kids attended a private school that had a dress code for HS students. The other prep HS adopted a dress code as well. Most of the kids know & follow the dress code, which is pretty specific and have no major complaints.</p>
<p>Folks who can’t drive to Target or elsewhere could purchase clothing on-line or at thrift shops or wherever else they’re already getting their clothing, including 2nd hand (as most of my clothing was when I was a student).</p>
<p>My concern with uniforms stems from first hand experience with children with tactile sensitivity issues.
I had a lot of problems with the expected dress of girls in the 60s, and I didn’t have to wear a uniform.
But I did have to wear slips, undershirts & stiff saddle shoes. These things were very uncomfortable and distracting and I never did get used to them.</p>
<p>I also have a child with tactile sensitivity and in elementary school it was a struggle for her to be dressed, let alone appropriately for the weather or in a uniform. Luckily she attended an “alternative” school, who didn’t blink when she wore the same pair of boys shorts, spaghetti strap top, fleece vest and tevas every day. I had to wash it when she slept and if it was warm from the dryer in the morning she would go outside and rub dirt on it.
It was her shield.</p>
<p>The tactile sensitivity is just one marker for children who may be " on the spectrum", and so by ruling them out of your school by requiring uniforms, you are limiting their choice of where to go to school, especially if that is the neighborhood school.</p>
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<p>What’s the difference between buying/washing clothes vs uniforms? Uniforms are just clothes and all kids have to wear clothes.</p>
<p>It depends on the uniform. Our uniforms couldn’t be bought anywhere other than specialty stores or swaps within the school.</p>
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<p>Why could you have suggested that female teachers do all the measuring, like TSA patdowns, using females for female passengers? Surely, other female teachers would have done it for you.</p>
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Our uniforms were custom made and we put in 6" hems to allow for growth.</p>
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I agree. We had the same policy. One reason I didn’t put my D in Catholic girls school.</p>
<p>One difference between uniforms and regular clothes is that you have a limited number of uniforms and they have to be ready to wear at specific times. You can easily acquire 10 T-shirts but only have 3 uniform shirts. But I have no objection to everyone else putting their kid in a uniform because it’s easier. I do object to having them tell me my kid has to wear a uniform if I don’t think it’s easier.</p>
<p>One less thing for kids to worry about and cause trouble–at least 99.9999% of kids.</p>