Uniforms

One simple solution toward easing some of the problems with peer pressure and competition in schools would be to require school uniforms. Uniforms should be mandatory at every school, public and private. It wouldn't require spending a single penny from the schools' budget and would harm no one. The positive aspects of uniforms are numerous and invaluable. Uniforms would remove the ability for the outward symbolizing of peer groups such as the "Trench Coat Mafia" at Columbine High in Littleton.

Principals in the Fullerton School District have been given permission to impose mandatory dress codes. Under a district policy recently revised by the school board, schools may require students to wear uniforms with parental approval. One of the district's elementary school principals already has been asked by several parents to implement a mandatory dress code. Officials at school districts that now require students to wear uniforms credit the policy with reducing some discipline problems.

Most Southern California apparel makers that target school-age consumers won't be jumping up and down, but Arlington, Va.-based International Mass Retail Assn. has good news for companies such as Vicki Marsha Uniforms in Huntington Beach. School uniforms are decidedly in, according to the trade association--at least among many parents who prefer uniformity to youthful fashion.

Students may start wearing uniforms by the middle of the school year under a policy being considered school by the Westminster School District Board of Trustees. The board is seeking comments and suggestions on the proposed policy, which would allow individual schools to adopt uniforms if parents showed interest in having them, said district spokeswoman Audrey Brown. She emphasized that under the plan, wearing the uniforms would be strictly voluntary.

Uniforms in fact do make schools safer, according to early data collected for a three-year Cal State Long Beach study to be completed in 1997. Research by consumer and family sciences professor Sue Stanley shows dramatic downturns in school violence after a little more than a year of mandatory uniforms in the Long Beach Unified School District.

Students may soon lose that morning worry about what to wear because their schools might make the decision for them. In a unanimous vote this week, Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District trustees adopted a policy that allows campuses to make uniforms either voluntary or mandatory. District officials said parents have been asking the board to take such measures. Parents have said that uniforms are more cost-effective and that they lessen time spent getting ready for school.

Citing safety issues and saying they want children to show respect for their schools and come to class ready to learn, trustees of the Westminster School District voted Thursday to require uniforms for all students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Board member Lynn Covey said before the 3-2 vote that the policy is in the best interest of the students. "This is a way to be proactive for our students," Covey said.

More than 100 children's baseball uniforms were stolen in southwest Los Angeles, forcing the cancellation Saturday of about a dozen opening-day games and possibly affecting games the rest of the week at Rancho Cienega Park. The new uniforms, for children ages 5 to 12, were stolen from a small storage building at the park late Friday or early Saturday, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Tony O'Brien. "The [thieves] broke a window, reached through, unlocked the door and got in," O'Brien said.

Parents whose children attend Dale Junior High will begin receiving surveys early next week asking how they feel about school uniforms. The school has offered to be a pilot for a proposal to require uniforms at all campuses in the Anaheim Unified High School District. "If there's no local support for it, it's going to be hard to implement," said Bob Montenegro, safe-schools administrator.