School uniform policies ruffle some collars

By Paul Sloth

Wednesday, June 20, 2007 2:14 AM CDT

Journal Times

Racine -

When students return to McKinley Middle School this fall they'll have a strict new dress code to follow - no sweat pants or jeans, no hoods or outside pockets and no stripes.

School officials decided this year to implement a uniform policy, making it only the second Racine Unified school - both middle schools - to require students to wear uniforms.

The new policy has generated support and opposition from parents, including one parent who said it isn't the school's job to tell him how to dress his children.

Six of Rudy Collum's seven children have attended McKinley. Collum's daughter, Mya, who will be in seventh grade this fall, was upset to learn about the new policy, he said.

"I don't get what they're trying to do. I don't know what the point is," Collum said. "My daughter is not going to wear a uniform. If I wanted her to wear a uniform, I'd send her to a private school."

The idea of uniforms in public schools has caught on slowly throughout the country ever since the Long Beach Unified School District in California implemented the first public school uniform policy in 1994. To date, no states have required its public schools to mandate uniforms.

Lori Sue Pelk, principal at McKinley, said talk of uniforms at McKinley is not new. It's been on the minds of people at the school ever since it became a charter school seven years ago. Uniforms were included in the original charter school contract, but the Racine Unified School Board, at the time, didn't support the idea, Pelk said.

McKinley officials based the new uniform policy on a similar policy at Gilmore Middle School, which just ended the first full year with its stricter dress code.

"When Gilmore went through with it and had success, that started getting our staff to start talking about it again," Pelk said.

The school formed a dress code committee, comprised of parents, students and staff members. The charter school's governing board approved the recommendations the committee made.

"We're not out to punish kids. We're not out to correct problems," Pelk said. "We're looking for unity. We're looking for school pride. We're looking to teach kids that clothing does not make the person."

Parents were sent a survey and the school held a uniform fashion show in May, but not everyone agrees that they were well-informed, especially parents of incoming Jefferson Lighthouse students who were fifth-graders.

Patrick Gasper, communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, said the department does not gather data about the number of schools or school districts that have implemented uniform policies.

"We neither encourage it nor discourage it," Gasper said. "It's really a local control issue that is left up to the school district's to decide."

Jackie Moes fully supports the school's decision. One of her three sons, James, will be a sixth-grader at McKinley in the fall. Her other two sons still attend Jefferson Lighthouse Elementary.

"I have to believe that if they've made a decision like this that it isn't arbitrary and capricious," Moes said. "I trust they're doing what's best for all the children."

Moes said she supports the uniform policy partly because she thinks it might reduce the number of distractions middle school students deal with at that stage in their lives.

"It's unfair to my child if the teacher or staff is spending time figuring out whose shirt is the right length or whose shirt is too large. That takes away from time the teacher could be using to focus on teaching," Moes said.

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