Are Uniforms Really Necessary?
May 6, 2018
In the 2010-2011 school year Manual Arts created a uniform policy because of the amount of complaints parents and staff constantly received. It all started with a parent who received a phone call to pick up her daughter from school because she wasn’t dressed “appropriately.” The mother then came to school to complain about the phone calls along with other parents and staff which agreed to have a meeting about the incident on campus. They had a meeting in order to make an agreement and come to a consensus about what should be done in order to resolve the situation. The votes and opinions led to what is now the uniform policy.
When asking their opinions on the uniform policy, an anonymous counselor said, “I don’t really care if you guys wear uniform or not as long your clothing is appropriate.” According to Ms. Rodriguez, “the uniform policy is a smart way to keep students safe from gang members. There are many gangs in the community and they use certain colors so representing the school colors keeps students out of trouble.” Many other teachers such as Ms. Alagala agree because some of her students in the past years have lost their lives due to gang activity near the school. Others don’t care or don’t have an opinion about it.
Students strongly disagree with the uniform policy. Tiffany P. is a junior at Manual Arts and she believes that the uniform policy is just “stupid.” She states that it is “no use in case of a kidnapping because if all students wear uniform and you describe the student wearing a purple/grey uniform shirt then that’ll get you nowhere considering that it’s describing most students in school.” She doesn’t see why the policy is necessary when many students don’t even wear the uniform.
Students like Ryan R. dislike the uniform colors. He realized that “most students in the class aren’t wearing uniform.” Ryan also believes that students should be able to express themselves and have a voice. As long as nobody is causing any harm or controversy, students should be allowed to wear whatever they want.
Parents of students in the school have different thoughts about this policy. Parent Delmi R. believes that, “It was a good idea when the students were younger but now that they’ve gotten older there is no point. I don’t see the need for them to wear uniform anymore.” Everyone has a different perspective about the Uniform Policy. Is it beneficial, or is it just useless?
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Jayden Cole • Mar 22, 2021 at 8:32 am
In my opinion, as a student, dress code as far as wearing the exact same uniform is unessecary. This is because there is no premise for wearing dress code that couldn’t be easily subverted. For example, if you were to say dress code would help administers identify the students attending the school that would be true but at the same time if an intruder excogitate infiltration into the school building one of the few things he would put in the process is wearing the uniform. Another premis that could very easily subverted is the premis of abating “gang activity”. I can assure you that even in charter and private schools there are probably groups of people that hector other groups of people and by definition that is a gang. I believe in the connotation that the Mrs. Rodriguez was speaking of only helped perpetuate stereotypes of people culture and beliefs. In saying that wearing certain colors would have u not represent anything gang related is definitely especially in seeing that the American flag has all colors of the international gang logo. Blue (crip), Red (blood), White ( Ku Klux Klan). The only premise that can slightly agree with is the fact that it would deter bullying but the only problem with that is the are some things you can’t take of that could support jeering like your skin color,personality, ethnicity, and hair.