School Uniforms

As the battle of the uniform rages on I decided to check in on the subject, I have remained relatively quiet because I don't care that much. My last child is a senior next year and for that I am grateful. Our school system is in disarray with no end in sight, I am happy she is graduating. I would certainly not recommend someone with school age children move to this district and I used to regularly.

I do think it is preposterous that my daughter who will be a senior and is dual enrolled and takes one class at NSBHS will be required to purchase and wear a uniform for that one class. There are many in that situation.

I keep hearing, learning is better, the school will be better, kids will be on an even playing field and safer, the parents will save money...blah blah blah. My son went to Warner Christian for 2 years in middle school, he wore uniforms, that is the expectation when you attend Warner Christian. He also had a teacher for 6th and 7th grade that is now serving 250 years in prison for being a pedophile.

My main concern is a ridiculous amount of time has been spent by our school board on this issue. While our teachers are taking hit after hit in pay and benefits. They are talking about uniforms. Our support staff could go work at Publix and make more money. Some of them with decades of experience and loyalty to the district. They are talking about uniforms.  Our schools are dirty. They are talking about uniforms. Students are being taught to take tests and not learning. They are talking about uniforms. The list goes on.

But wait, we are getting $10 per student for uniforms. No, we are not, they had to be in place by January 2016 to get the money. They will vote on it again but it is not guaranteed and probably won't be long term even if it is voted in again.

This clown show of a school board should be proud though, uniforms is a really good distraction to get us all off the real issues facing the school.

Some of you may know Kim Schwab-Short. I am publishing with her permission a post on the Volusia County School Forum Facebook page about uniforms. It is long, it is factual and well worth the time to read and learn. The link to the post is at the bottom if you would like to view it on Facebook and read the comments.

MY TAKE ON UNIFORMS:
I have decided that I need to put out on this forum a few things to get us all to, hopefully, look at this another way. First, I need everyone to try and pretend that you are on a board making decisions for a population of 62,000 students that are roughly at a 65% free and reduced lunch rate. Which means that more than half of our children get food for lunch provided for them...as well as other services. We have, documented, 2000 homeless children in our county. Second, I need you to remember that this is a public school. Ted Doran, our school board attorney, can answer this better than I, but to my knowledge you can not legally force anyone to purchase anything to attend a public school. We live, unfortunately, in a society where we have people who will take advantage of this fact. The ugly truth...we have a school that is at 98% free and reduced lunch that has reported on the fact that they give shoes to some of their most unfortunate children and the families of those children sell the shoes and send them back for more. The world is not filled with everyone who will see uniforms as a good thing for the right reasons. Is this a big percentage...no, but I need everyone to understand that uniforms will have a COST associated to this policy. In the research I have done, and I have looked into it, this will have a cost associated up front AND to sustain it. Let's say we only have to provide for 30% of our kids...at roughly $10 a child ($4 polo, $4 pants and $2 belt...which is very conservative)...that is $186,000. Now, we will need back stock on hand at every school, in various sizes. Small children have accidents, new families move in to the area...Does everyone see where I am going with this? OUR SCHOOL BOARD HAS PROVIDED NO EXPLANATION ON WHERE THIS MONEY WILL COME FROM. They don't have to...they can set the policy and leave it up to the individual schools to handle. Our school board, to my knowledge, has not even approached Volusia County Council PTA about a plan to hand out, store and/or fundraise and provide uniforms. Our district has made it clear that we have no money for uniforms. 


SAFETY:
This has been a point made over and over again. "Our children will be more safe if they all have the same thing on." The policy is posted on the website and adults will be on campus and visiting campus out of uniform on a daily basis. Honestly...the argument is weak. I personally think it's amusing that our mostly Republican board is saying this. I now wonder how they feel about the NRA. wink emoticon


CHOICE:
Many of our board members are for choice, charter schools. Mrs. Linda Costello is proud of homeschooling her grandson. Here is the problem with what they say they are for...and what they are actually doing. By making all our public schools wear uniforms you are actually taking away choice. We had a mother, an amazing woman, walk completely outside her comfort zone by speaking to the board about her child's sensory disorder. She feels like public school was the best fit for her child because she wants her to be able to assimilate to other children and hopefully one day be able to wear something other than her leggings and soft long sleeve t-shirts. One in six children have this disorder. OUR BOARD IS LEAVING HER NO CHOICE.


ENFORCEMENT:
The kids will get 2 warnings, referrals...and then the third infraction will result in internal suspension. How will this kind of distraction be any better than what is currently going on? More importantly how will this contribute to learning gains...because after all, we are supposed to be educating them not fashion policing them. 


FUNDRAISING:
Of the parents who want uniforms...how many have said that they are willing to do this? This effort will take this...and the money they receive for this, will come from something else. Technology, mini grants, etc. Businesses have limited budgets for donations...are uniforms the priority? 


HISTORY:
In Volusia County we have had uniforms at select schools...they all failed. When the idea of testing this again in a few schools was brought up...OUR SCHOOL BOARD SAID NO I am going to put my buyer hat on for a second and tell a story...in my former life as a Buyer for Burdines, it is never a good idea to NOT test something. Truth be told, that survey...as unscientific as it was, had some interesting data regarding the Hispanic community. They seemed disportionately in favor. My business side would suggest approaching the SAC's in a couple high % ESOL schools and see of they want to take this on. Who knows...it may work. 


LOCAL CONTROL:
This is where I see the most hypocrisy. I attended the meeting when Senator Don Gaetz came to town. He was very proud of giving the control back to the individual school's and holding them accountable. I personally loved that about his talk. Pushing down a uniform policy from the district, with no funding...instead of letting the schools opt to do it...is hardly local school based decision making. It is big government, pushing down from the top...again, very interesting coming from people who call themselves Republicans. 


SCHOOL BOARD MEETING PUBLIC COMMENTS OVERALL:
In over two hours of public comments, mostly regarding uniforms, only one student was for them...no one else was for them. They disregarded it completely. In the counties that have uniforms...no major opposition was present. This has never been a clear Volusia County community priority. This is on our school board member's agenda...and two of them have never had a child in public school.


IN CLOSING:
I know this is long...for that I am sorry, but I would really like to move off this subject. I understand that the kids in our school's wear inappropriate stuff and it's not nice to look at. I wore a uniform and I actually liked it. This is not going to solve the problems of our kids trying to get attention in inappropriate ways. If you want to eradicate that...I suggest you start a mentor program at your child's school. Form a relationship with a child...help them from the inside out. This whole thing can't be looked at from our individual opinion...it needs to be looked at as the whole. 62,000 students means roughly 120,000 parents right? That is a whole lot of moving parts...if you think this will be simple...well, please...think again. My take...it will fall apart on it's own. Hopefully this gets read by a school board member. Maybe they will wake up. Big thanks to Linda Cuthbert for listening and standing alone.

Facebook Link 

Kim makes some great points here, some that, I for one had not thought of and simply did not know.

Again, we have been distracted by this issue, while the salary bargaining talks continue and The No Child Left Behind Act was overturned on December 9th leaving the states and local districts in control of curriculum and testing. Now is the time to take care of our teachers and staff and eliminate the common core testing.

We all need to wake up and realize what is important to our education system, uniforms is not it. I don't care about the kids freedom of expression, I don't care about it being easier to pick out what to wear or it being cheaper...I care about the fact that we are distracted from the REAL issues and have elected a school board that either has not a clue about what they are doing or they don't really care.