Do School Uniforms Fit?

School Administrator, Feb, 2000 by Kerry A. White

"I don't think we've heard the last word on [school uniforms]," he says. "But my guess is that courts will be friendly to them. Judges are more aware of violence and other problems in schools and I think they'll be more receptive to school uniforms" as a means to improve schools.

Still, most civil libertarians remain opposed to the idea. Loren Siegal, the director of the public education department of the American Civil Liberties Union, says uniforms distract parents and school officials from more pressing concerns facing schools like crumbling school buildings, overcrowded classrooms and dwindling school funding.

"The debate over uniforms is a diversion," Siegal writes in an ACLU policy paper on the subject. "Attractive, modem and safe school buildings, small class sizes, schools with well-stocked libraries, new computers and an array of elective courses like music, drama and art-- those are the kinds of changes that would produce long-lasting and dramatic improvements in student deportment and achievement."

Alternative Actions

The unresolved debate has prompted many school officials to study the issue carefully before jumping headlong into a school uniform policy.

After much ado last spring, school officials in Fayette County, Ga., for example, decided to tighten their schools' dress codes instead of adopting uniforms this school year. John D. DeCotis, superintendent of the 20,000-student system in suburban Atlanta, says parents were looking to school officials to restore order to schools after several local Columbine-inspired pranks last spring, but ultimately a task force concluded there were better ways for the district to address school safety.

"There's research on both sides, and I see advantages to both sides," DeCotis says. "But in the end, my responsibility is to do what the community wants," and the community did not want uniforms.

The Marple Newtown School District in Newtown Square, Pa., opted for a dress code rather than school uniforms last year. Tube tops and halter tops, cutoff shorts, clothes promoting drugs or alcohol, short shorts and oversize trousers are all verboten now.

"Going from a loose dress code to school uniforms seemed like a knee-jerk reaction," says Raj K. Chopra, superintendent of the 4,000-student suburban Philadelphia school system. "It seems like an easy solution, but our goal was to get students to dress for success. [We wanted] to create a sense of responsibility on behalf of students."

But other school officials have been less tempered in their approach.

The Polk County, Fla., school system outside Tampa may be the first district in the nation to adopt a school uniform policy from which students cannot opt out. The district instituted a school uniform policy for its elementary and middle schools in 1996, but so few students complied with the dress codes that the school board voted 4-3 last spring to remove the opt-out option, beginning this school year.

Under the new policy, which a group of parents is challenging in court, the only students who can go without a uniform are those wearing other uniforms to school, such as Girl Scout outfits or students with "serious and sincere" religious beliefs that prevent them from abiding, district superintendent Glenn Reynolds says. All other students are required to wear navy, black or khaki-colored slacks, shorts or skirts, with navy- or white-collared shirts. Polk students who show up out of uniform--with no good First Amendment claim to back them--face immediate suspension.