Schools Stop Requiring Uniforms

Plaid's Out, Again, as Schools Give Up Requiring Uniforms
By KATE ZERNIKE

CANYON COUNTRY, Calif. — They tried hard to keep school uniforms going. They relented on the requirement for the logo. They allowed casual Fridays. They phoned every parent in a school of 1,300 students and reminded them that uniforms were mandatory — though yes, there was the opt-out provision for anyone who really objected.

But soon, teachers were wasting the first 10 minutes of class trying to figure out who had waivers and who was breaking the rules. The rule breakers were crowding the principal's office. By last spring, with only 200 students wearing uniforms, officials at Sierra Vista Junior High did what had come to seem inevitable: they abandoned school uniforms.

"It was nuts; it became a huge distraction," said Beth Shedd, the head of the math department. "It increased friction, it increased discipline problems, having to worry about who was wearing what. It wasn't worth the fight."

Just as Sierra Vista was one of many public schools caught up in the uniform craze of the 1990's, now it is one of many giving up on it. In California alone, where the trend took off, at least 50 schools have abandoned uniforms in the last two years. In and around Salt Lake City, 16 of the 40 schools that once required uniforms have dropped them. School officials report defections in Florida, Kansas and New Hampshire.

Uniforms first took hold as a way of dealing with gang colors and improving school security in the mid-1990's. But soon educators and politicians began to hold them out as cure-alls: if students looked more orderly, schools would be more orderly. Noise and discipline problems would go down, attendance and test scores would go up. Uniforms would blur distinctions between rich and poor and short-circuit the age-old competition over clothes. President Bill Clinton urged uniforms in two State of the Union addresses. President Bush allowed a tax break for them.

Yet in many places, the promises have not panned out. If anything, problems increased as infractions built up and uniforms became a stigma marking poor students. In places like this swelling suburb 35 miles north of Los Angeles, parents seemed less concerned about school safety. But even at urban schools in neighborhoods considered more dangerous, officials say they found it too hard to get parents to go along.

"I think if it had happened and kids really bought into it, I think it might have been a larger, more immediate success," said Donna Wells, the former director of school safety programs for Virginia and a researcher who has studied the effect of uniforms. "But I think uniforms have peaked for now. If there are a couple of school shootings tomorrow, we may see it again. But my sense is that right now people are focused on larger issues."

It is hard to know precisely how many school districts have adopted uniforms and how many have abandoned them. States do not track this information, and federal statistics do not go beyond 1997. As part of a study of school safety measures in 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that uniforms were required at about 20 percent of public and Roman Catholic elementary and middle schools and 10 percent of high schools.

In 1994, Long Beach, Calif., was the first big-city school district to adopt uniforms. When school crime rates dropped 22 percent the first year, the district quickly became a model for schools around the country.

So far, uniforms seem to have stuck best in cities. New York City, which came late to the trend, required elementary students to wear uniforms starting in 1999 unless the schools opted out; 75 percent of schools now make them mandatory.

Yet even in Long Beach, officials are tweaking the rules to keep uniforms going. This year, three elementary schools and the high school are allowing students to wear blue-and-white Hawaiian print shirts instead of the standard polo shirts as incentive to keep them in uniforms.

"It's a big, big, big, big struggle," said Michael Navia, the principal at Cubberley Elementary in Long Beach, where 60 percent of students wear Hawaiian shirts. "All we have to back us up is the parent."

Generally, public schools have to hold a vote among parents on uniforms, and have to allow them to opt out. That is where the problems begin.

In Canyon Country, teachers and parents talk about the early days of mandatory uniforms wistfully, as if recalling a kind of communal bliss. For years after the school adopted uniforms in 1996, not a single Canyon Country student arrived out of uniform. "Children had more focus, parents had peace of mind," said Randy Parker, the principal at Sierra Vista.

Then in the spring of 1999, a parent at a nearby junior high school objected to mandatory uniforms, saying the policy violated students' constitutional right of free expression. In defense of the state law, a newspaper article pointed out that state law allowed parents to opt out of uniform policies. That was news to many parents at Sierra Vista, and ammunition to their children.

The next day, teachers said, a small group of students showed up out of uniform. They moved through the hallways like a threatening storm cloud, whispering to others of their newly realized rights.

Within a month, 100 students had opted out, and others were showing up out of uniform, or with a change of clothes tucked into their backpacks. That fall, the school relaxed the rules, but the problem got worse.

Parents began using waivers as bargaining chips: get an A in algebra and you do not have to wear the uniform. Others stuffed waivers into Christmas stockings. Mr. Parker had to update the opt-out list daily.

By spring 2001, teachers were pleading to get rid of the policy. The uniform disputes coincided with new state tests, and policing clothes was taking too much time. Mr. Parker took the request to the school board. "I didn't think the tide was going to turn back," he said.

The board wanted the school to try. So the phone calls went out. In the first two days of school in 2001, Mr. Parker met with 100 parents — leaving 21 new teachers essentially leaderless. Four hundred students opted out in the first week, with the number rising to 500 within a month. By spring, with only about 200 students in uniform, the school told teachers to stop enforcing the rule. In June, the school board repealed the policy.

"Parents want uniforms," Mr. Parker said. "They just don't want uniforms for their kid."

Some parents at Sierra Vista, as at other schools nationwide, said it was too expensive to maintain two sets of clothes. Others, though, said it was the battles they could not afford.

"I have a pile of uniforms at home; I loved them," Wendy Taylor said. "With teenage girls, it made it so much easier in the morning. But when some of the kids stopped, they picked up on it and said, `Everybody else isn't wearing them.' Slowly everybody just stopped."

Other districts have had problems, too.

South of Los Angeles, in Westminster, officials hoped uniforms would even out class and race distinctions in their 17 schools. In fact, they said, uniforms reinforced them. Hispanic and Asian parents, generally poorer, embraced uniforms, while white parents opted out, saying their children wanted to show off new outfits.

Elsewhere, school officials say the opt-outs began corrupting the message they were trying to send. The Highland-Goffe's Falls School in Manchester, N.H., dropped its uniform policy when seven families refused to go along. "The whole idea of education is consistency," said Jim Paul, the principal. "All it takes is one behavior that's inconsistent. The kids start saying, `If they don't have to do it, why should I?' "

Still, others keep trying. In Utah, Karen Morgan, a state representative, sponsored three changes in state law to try to make uniform policies work. This year, Ms. Morgan shepherded a law that largely eliminates opt-out provisions.

But in Canyon Country, teachers are once again talking about school as a kind of bliss.

"Once we let it go, it was a much quieter place to be," said Ms. Shedd, the math department head. "I can teach again."

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I say thank goodness for this because I always thought niforms was a bad idea. I've always felt that you should be allowed to wear what you want to school, as long as it's within reason, not what some airheaded principal says to wear. (That's how I felt when I was in school.) I even went to a school where HATS (yes, H A T S) weren't allowed!! And it was in Orlando, Florida! I mean, come ON people, the sun's bright as heck, we need to protect ourselves! And the same school even said shirt sleeves had to cover the upper arms to a certain point (at least 1" above the elbow). Their dress code was a POC, as far as I was concerned. (BTW, that's Dr. Phillips High School for ya.) If you want a relaxed atmosphere where hats are allowed, try Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo, CA. I've gone there too. Or any other school where they allow hat wearing.

Enough ranting, how do you feel about this?

I never had to wear a uniform for my school. Although we do have stupid dress codes. I hate our rules!! Some of them are pretty ridiculous!!!!

I've only been to 1 school that required uniformes! The worst school ever! The uniforms they sold were so ghetto and itchy!

Oh great. This is just great. Another problem regarding the school uniform. What's up with these kids today? What's wrong with people wearing the same clothes? Does uniform really make them look that, what do you call those group? Aha, nerd.

Man...

i dont have to wear uniforms but my school wants to, but the thing is its not all that bad. when i was in elementry school we had to so im not against it i just dont like it

At my school we dont have to wear uniforms but we might as well with how strict the dress code is, no hats on school grounds, no pant or shirt sleevs rolled up, and no bandanas on school grounds, theres more but those are the worst.

Personally, I cannot stand the following in dress codes:

• No hats.
• No sleeveless or short (as in real short) sleeved shirts.
• No cuffed pants or shirt sleeves.

It's like what the heck is the point of those three especially? I really don't see any myself. If you want to add your own, go ahead.

Theres no uniforms at the school I go to...
But there would be a good side of wearing school uniforms, seeing those chicks in the short plaided skirts and knee high white stockings