School Uniforms, Yes or No?

In My Humble Opinion
21

When schools impose “dress codes” without actual uniform requirements, they can have real problems. When “acceptable” is open to interpretation, uneven enforcement can result.

Most uniforms are for color and style, etc, not like you can only wear one brand or something. Stores like Target, Sears, Robinsons and others sell “uniforms”, which are usually solid color pants, shorts & skirts, white blouses, a sweater, etc.

My husband wore uniforms until high school, and didn’t mind, nor did his sisters. Also, the girls could pass down well-made uniforms, so they got worn for years. The uniform was white polo-collared shirt, blue or khaki pants or shorts or skirt (or plaid skirt), blue sweater. Easy to buy, easy to match, kids could dress themselves fast.

I like 'em, and my son will probably go to private school so he’ll wear 'em.

22

My kids wear them at their parochial school. They really do help with the morning “What will I wear?” routine.

And no, it’s not just as expensive to buy clothes for after-school and weekends. A uniform lasts year round and can be handed down to her sister. Add in 5 polo shirts, a couple pairs of navy blue socks, a sweatshirt, and a sweater, and you’re set for the year - sometimes 2. My girls wear the same after-school clothes two days in a row. So 5 other outfits is really all they need. I spend as much buying them summer outfits, when a uniform isn’t worn, as the other 3 seasons combined.

I know a lot of kids don’t want uniforms because they don’t think they look “cool.” And those are the kind of kids who would probably benefit the most from uniforms.

23

Yeesh. That’s exactly what my boyfriend said when he saw me right after school the other day. I still don’t like them though,

24

As Feynn pointed out, our boys school adopted uniforms this year. Actually almost more of a clothing restriction, since they had their choice of two styles of top in two colours, bought through the school. Pants we had to buy ourselves, but I haven’t noticed any real distinction in the quality of the pants that parents chose to buy, and again there was a choice of two colours. They go to a very small, private school, not public. I spent less money this fall outfitting them than I do most years. The tops are very simple, and the school got a great price on them. Since the pants required were simple cotton pants, they were rather inexpensive to buy as well. So no, I didn’t find the uniforms more expensive in the long run.

The boys don’t mind the clothes that they have to wear to school, and haven’t complained about it at all. I can honestly say that I haven’t seen any improvements since they started, but things don’t seem to be going poorly either.

In the end, it seems like it just made it easier to get them dressed in the morning.

25

I think the idea of school uniforms is a good one, it’s just the actual uniforms people have had to wear that haven’t necessarily been good.

I just graduated from college, and I’ve thought since Junior High that uniforms might not be bad, depending on the uniform. For instance, a uniform could be a certain style/color of jeans, shoes, and t-shirt, with shorts, skirt, slacks, sweatshirt/sweatrers, and jacket options (and others). They don’t have to be stereotypical Catholic school uniforms. Most of my friends and I wore jeans and t-shirts almost every day, anyway. The school could sell, say, 5 different t-shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets, all with school emblem or something, and the rest could be bought wherever. Most kids I know wouldn’t mind uniforms like that nearly as much as the coat-and-tie versions.

26

[slight hijack]

I don’t comprehend the idea of having trouble finding something to wear in the morning.

The BK method runs thus:

  1. Open bottom dresser drawer, grab pair of pants.
  2. Close drawer, put pants on.
  3. Open middle dresser drawer, grab shirt.
  4. Close drawer, put shirt on.
  5. Open top dresser drawer, grab pair of socks.
  6. Close drawer, put socks on.
  7. Grab pair of boots.
  8. Put boots on.

It seems to me like it would be a lot more work to try to find a specific shirt and a specific pair of pants.

[/slight hijack]

27

This is actually exactly what I meant by restrictive dress code. I’ve never seen uniforms sold in Target or Sears here, but there are a lot of children’s stores here that sell various school uniforms, and they know which school uses which style. If a school requires true uniforms, it’s not enough to have navy blue pants. It has to be that particular style of blue pants. If you say you want navy blue uniform pants, they ask you which school,because they might have six different styles of navy pants, but only one is acceptable for a particular school. When i’m talking about a true uniform, think of a sports team or Scouts. A Cub Scout uniform is not just a particular color,it has to be a specific shirt and pants and in fact bought from an official supplier. Certain parts of my kids uniforms have to be bought from the official supplier - no one else has the plaid needed for the skirt and tie ( and if anyone else did, it would be because they were the official supplier for another school that used the same plaid) and no one else has the emblem for the sweater and vest.

28

So, can I have a list of the great advantages of uniforms that outweigh the protests of those that, for whatever reason, are opposed to them?

Do they really solve any problems that won’t just pop up in another form?

29

I was forced to wear uniforms my SENIOR YEAR of high school!
You can’t even begin to imagine how HORRIBLE it was!!! I had to wake up every morning, put on my boring as hell white polo shirt and my equally as ugly (if not more so) khaki pants every day. My school was really anal about the whole dress code thing, too. Let me give you a quick rundown of what the rules were:

*White polo shirt with three buttons.(Yes, they counted them). No emblems, brand names, etc.
*Brown khaki pants. They couldn’t be cargo pants, either. We had to have belt loops. No emblems, brand names, etc.
*The reason for the belt loops: We were required to wear brown or black belts.
*We had to tuck in our shirts every day.
*Socks had to be either white, khaki, or black. No emblems, brand names, etc.
*Shoes had to be either blue, black, or white. They could have an emblem, but only if it was very, very, small.
*For added fun, we had to wear an ID card on a lanyard around our neck all day, every day.
*To further enrich our lives, we had to lug around a planner everywhere that we went. It included a hall pass.

That’s not even the best part! I didn’t go to some strict military school in Germany. I went to a public school in Louisiana!!! With all of these security measures, you’d think that we were Satan’s spawn or something! But we actually had a well behaved (for the most part) high school.
You’d expect this kind of security in Compton, CA, not in some tiny little town in the middle of LA. And the worst part is that I didn’t learn a damn thing my entire senior year of high school. Classes were an hour and thirty minutes long, and after the teachers got through checking attendance, and inspecting everyone’s uniform, planner and ID, it was almost time for the next class. Everybody was miserable, and none of our problems were solved. Now, instead of teasing some kid about his cheap shoes, the bullies just skipped the middleman and beat the kid up. Uniforms just rob people of their personalities. I was very happy wearing bright colorful clothes, and when I was forced to wear uniforms, I was never in a good mood. Okay, I’m gonna stop now before this thread gets moved to Great Debates or something. So Ludo, if you have any questions, email them to me and I’ll be happy to answer them because so far, I guess that I’m the resident expert on uniforms in public schools.

30

And regular clothes can’t?

31

yeah, uniforms don’t flatter my figure at all. they make me look fat. and it takes me jsut as long to get dressed wearing “normal” clothes as it does uniforms.
though they say that uniforms let people focus les on their clothes, they pick on your shoes, ur jewelry, the type of car u drive.

one of my schools reasoning with uniforms is that it keeps us more focused in class and on the academic subjects. but on days of finals, midterms and AP exams, we get to wear regular clothes, on the basis that we will be more comfortable. can anyone make see of this logic?

32

I go to the same private school as hypergirl. It is more expensive for me to buy uniforms there than it would be to buy a wardrobe measured by how much it costs per item.
*pants: $40+ depending on any special sizing needs you might have. [I have two pairs from freshman year that I don’t wear and instead wear pairs of cheaper khakis that are way more comfy for me than those. I got busted for them after two years of wearing them on thursday. Damned dress code nazi didn’t let me eat my lunch before he had me go up to his office to get a detention.]
*polo shirt: $16 They’re ugly, they have the school logo on them, and they’re cheaply made.
*4-pleat skirt: $35-40 These things are made of cheap material and have a tendency to get fucked up.
*kilt: $35-40 These are made of worse quality material and resemble messed up parachutes. The material is seethrough to some point in sunlight, but not enough to tell colour differences.
*button down oxford shirt:
long-sleeved: $35
short sleeved: $27
The store that we are supposed to go to for these uniforms is owned by the school president’s wife. Any adding of insignias, etc. go through the store and are $5 or more per service per item. The only sweaters we’re allowed to wear are $35 or more, and they suck. I spent more money at this store in my freshman year than I did at all the other stores I bought clothing from that year. I am also in choir, so I had to pay an extra $200-300 for uniforms for that, and tailoring for the uniform. It’s horrible, and I’d rather if they just had general guidelines instead of milking all of our money out of us on uniform costs and technology fees in addition to tuition and books. [Those are all completely different matters unto themselves.]

33

As others have pointed out, simply having the kids wear uniforms will NOT solve the problems…merely hides them for a little bit. They’re never going to learn how to DEAL in the real world.
I wore uniforms in Catholic school. They SUCK.

34

I’ve taught in both private schools (a coed Catholic school for 2 years, and all girl Catholic school for 1 year) and public schools…

Uniforms don’t “solve” any problems…they are part of a larger approach or philosophy .

It’s a bit difficult to explain without actually observing it over a long period of time, but I think uniform wearing acts a social cue for learning as well…the act of 'wearing" a uniform (and again, as has been pointed out, “uniform” can just mean a white shirt and dark pants or skirt) is one of many “cues” to learning that can contribute to a learning environment. Nice peppy sayings on chalkboards or motivational posters in the hallway, or various other school rituals do not in and of themselves “solve” a problem…but they contribute to an overall learning environment.

Those who think that wearing a uniform is a panacea to the problems that kids are having is foolish…by the same token, anyone who ignores the role that a positive learning environment (including wearing uniforms) can have on kids is naive.

The notion that uniforms blurs the distinctions between kids or makes them less unique seems silly…if the message that we’re sending to kids is that you create an identity by clothing (rather than personality, or intellect, or musical ability, or a sense of humor etc…), then we have some serious problems.
It’s much easier as well to proscribe “what” to wear, then it is to prohibit what you “can’t” wear…every year there seems to be more subtler ways of t-shirts advertising or promoting smoking, drinking, drugs etc…

35

How do uniforms “hide” problems or prevent kids from “dealing” in the real world?

I taught in Catholic schools for a few years, none of the other teachers or administrators thought that the students did not have problems ,just because they were wearing uniforms. We had kids with self esteem problems, broken homes, drug problems etc…the same kinds of problems in other schools…uniforms don’t hide those problems.

36

I guess what I mean is, they’re simply a temporary solution.
What about when the kids hang out somewhere after school? They’re going to be wearing their expensive/cheap clothes, and still feel self conscious. Or, if it’s for safety measures, they’ll get beat up, clothing stolen on the weekends.
That’s all.

37

Guess I should avoid turning this into a Great Debate…I do agree that school uniforms are mainly for a “school” environment , so in that sense I guess they are temporary…

38

Or am I a staunch conservative? Anyway, school is not the place, to me, for unbridled freedom of expression. Well, let me say high school anyway. I never gave much thought to how I looked in school, and as a consequence I found that some people thought I dressed, well, incorrectly.
I was in school to learn. There was no other reason for me to be there but to be subjected to new ideas and to study things under the guidance of someone who knew that topic better than I did.
When I was in school it went from 7:45 AM to 2:10. By my count, that’s less than six hours when you count in changing classes, lunch, and such. Adding a nice eight hours of sleep onto that total we find that you are still left with ten hours of personal expression time.
Wear a stupid uniform, shut up, and learn something. I only wish half my classmates could even do the latter.
Wearing a uniform does not stifle the intellect by any means as history bears testament. Consider groundbreaking scientists from the twenties and thirties, or half the phd’s I work with.

yadda yadda yadda…

39

I hope you’re not implying that those who don’t wear uniforms won’t learn anything.

40

Well, I suppose it would give the kids something mild and non-destructive to rebel against. Other than that, I can’t imagine what the advantage would be, and I CERTAINLY can’t imagine how forcing everybody to dress alike contributes to a “positive learning environment.”