Just when you thought we would be slipping lazily into Summer, now comes the proposal from the school staff to go to student uniforms in the Fall. The staff and faculty, lead by the principal and the Campus Improvement Leadership Team (CILT), cite excessive time and effort required to enforce the current dress code. Pants worn down at the knees, flip-flops and simple gang colors are soooo last year. Now it’s cryptic, graffiti-like gang-related messages on shirts for boys and girls somehow getting out of the house in little more than lingerie. The staff expects uniforms to improve safety through supression of the gang culture, fewer distractions, more pride and overall improved performance among the students.
The problem is, none of this may be true.
Despite the testimonials from schools that have gone to uniforms, scholarly work that has been done on the subject since Long Beach Unified Schools became the first major urban district to go to them in 1994 has shown the effects of uniforms to be inconclusive, at best. Here in Dallas ISD, three of the top performing comprehensive high schools, Woodrow, Hillcrest and W.T. White, don’t have uniforms. Of our largest academically outstanding specialty high schools, Townview has them, Arts Magnet does not. All of the schools who will be reconstituted under the provisions of No Child Left Behind, do have uniforms.
The PTA took up the issue both at their regular meeting last Monday as well as a special meeting last Friday. The final hurdle, if there is one, comes at Tuesdays Site Based Decision Making Committee (SBDM) meeting. The heat comes early this year.
