Following Suit : As Students Fixate on Clothes, More Schools Opt for Uniforms

It was a nightly exercise in frustration for 13-year-old Vintea Nairn. For two hours, the eighth-grader at Charles R. Drew Middle School would fret over which outfit she would wear to school the next day, nervously combing her closet for just the right combination.

Should she wear the silk outfit or the leather suit, the Guess? jeans or the Gitano ensemble? No, she couldn’t wear the Guess? skirt because she had worn that last week. Other students, she knew, would be watching.

Her mother would remind her to do her homework, but Vintea would insist that she needed to get her clothes straight first.

“I would get headaches trying to figure it out,” she said. “The next morning, it would still take me an hour to get dressed. Sometimes I still couldn’t make up my mind, so I’d have to take clothes with me in the car on the way to school.”

That was last year. Now, every morning Vintea calmly slips into a maroon skirt, a white or yellow blouse and black shoes. Sometimes she adds a matching sweater, or a brooch. That’s it.

Life for Vintea has become much simpler since her mother and the parents of her classmates agreed that from now on their children would wear uniforms to public school.

Across the East, parents of children in many U.S. public schools have made the same decision. This year, tens of thousands of pupils are arriving at school each morning dressed in color-coordinated uniforms--a simple blouse and skirt or jumper for girls, shirt, tie and pants for boys.

Uniforms have traditionally been required at parochial schools and many private schools, but the current trend toward uniforms in public schools appears to have begun only two years ago at two schools in Detroit and one in Washington. In the brief span since, schools and parents have swarmed to the idea.

In Miami last year, two schools tried the experiment. This year, pupils at 44 Miami public schools are wearing uniforms.

In Washington, children now are in uniform at 32 public schools.

In Baltimore, 73 elementary schools--40% of the city’s public schools--have switched to uniforms; the school superintendent hopes every elementary school will have followed suit by next fall.

Thirty public schools in Detroit and 10 in Philadelphia have taken up the idea.

New Orleans is experimenting this year with uniforms at one high school, where student resistance to the idea is likely to be greater than in the lower grades.

Meanwhile, other parents and school districts in Texas, Illinois, New York, Virginia and Tennessee are examining the concept.

“It just looks like an idea whose time has come,” said Cheryl Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Washington school system.

Increasingly, parents and public school educators have turned to student uniforms in a battle with the clothing industry for young minds.

Teachers and parents complain that the nation’s children, inundated with television and print advertisements and surrounded by peer pressure to keep step with the latest fashion fad, have become clothes fixated.

Educators say students are so busy scanning classmates’ wardrobes that they can hardly pay attention in class.

Parents say they are financially pressed by the clothing demands of children who are trying to keep up with other students.

Counselors warn that older students are taking jobs to get money for clothes, often to the detriment of their studies. And, they say, occasionally, students have even turned to crime, dealing drugs, for example, to pay for clothes. Others have robbed and sometimes even killed youngsters over sunglasses, sneakers, designer jackets and jogging suits. Thus, parents and educators hope uniforms will get their children’s minds off fashion and onto education.

And, in city after city, parents, educators, and even students say the results have been phenomenal.

“It’s the best thing that ever happened,” said Nancy Reed, whose 10-year-old son wears a uniform at his Detroit elementary school.

“It’s been a blessing,” said Principal Jessie A. Stinson of Hialeah Elementary School in Miami, where children began to wear uniforms this year.

“I didn’t I like them at first,” said Edward Fisher, a Washington sixth-grader, “but I do now. I have a special pride in my uniform. I think we look better.”

Parents say uniforms have saved them hundreds of dollars and done away with the morning tug of war with children over what to wear. Even more rewarding, they say, their children seem more studious.

Discipline Improving

Educators say that discipline problems have declined dramatically. Principal Melody Martin at Damon J. Keith Elementary in Detroit says youngsters no longer clutter her office because of squabbles and fights over who is wearing what, who touched whose clothes and who stepped on whose shoes. Children seem more attentive and more respectful and there is greater school spirit, teachers say.

Schoolchildren, many of whom greeted the idea of uniforms with a collective “Yuck!” are now among its biggest proponents, and often with their approval they express a sense of relief.

“I really disliked the uniform at first,” says Kevin Williams, an eighth-grader at Drew Middle School in Miami, “but it’s better because we don’t have to think about clothes, what style is hitting this year . . . I don’t waste my time on that. I’ve noticed that my grades have improved a lot--I’m making A’s and Bs.”

“If you didn’t have certain jeans, like Jordache or Guess?, they would laugh at you,” said Ebony Steele, a sixth-grader at Burrville in Washington. “People would say, ‘Where did you get your clothes from--the thrift store?’ We had a lot of fights about stuff like that.”

“That’s why I like wearing a uniform,” said Terrace Scott Price, 10, of Tench Tillman Elementary School in Baltimore, “because people don’t laugh at me.”

At present, uniforms are being worn mainly in elementary schools. But junior highs are increasingly adopting them, as children move up and their parents want the practice to continue.

Interest in uniforms has grown at a surprising rate. In some cases, principals like Martin in Detroit and Walter O. Henry in Washington took the idea to parents. In other cases, parents like those at Flagami Elementary in Miami and Zeigler Elementary in Philadelphia, took the idea to the principal after seeing it work at a nearby school.

All public school uniform programs are voluntary. A parent cannot be required to participate, school officials said, and students who do not wear uniforms must not be penalized. Officials admit, however, that a reverse peer pressure does take place with many students.

“When they see all of the other students with uniforms on, they want one, too,” said Miami principal Fred Morley.

Most schools have made arrangements to supply uniforms for those students whose parents cannot afford them. At Drew Elementary, for example, the parents’ association, led by President Wyella Gaymon, raised $5,000 through candy drives and bake sales. That, and a $5,000 donation from a foundation paid for 300 uniforms.

Most uniforms cost only $30 to $50 and it was the chance to economize that initially lured most parents to the idea. “You spend that much for a pair of sneakers,” said Josephine Gilliam, a grandmother and a teacher at Tench Tillman in Baltimore.

Vintea Nairn’s mother, Waltonnia, a Miami hat designer, estimated that, before uniforms, she spent at least $600 at the beginning of the school year to clothe her daughter. “Then every other week it was one or two new outfits,” she said, “and that doesn’t include Christmas or her birthday.”

Behavior Changes

But if economics captured the attention of most parents, what really sold them on the idea, they say, is the change in their children’s behavior.

“When my kids wear the uniforms, they love to come to school,” said custodian Burt Lancaster, 30. “They never say, ‘I don’t want to go to school,’ even when they’re sick. When they wore (regular) clothes, they worried about what their friends got. That’s changed, their attitudes have changed. If I have to send them to a public school and it doesn’t have uniforms, I’ll send them to Catholic schools. Whatever the uniform is doing, I want it to keep doing it.”

For Thelma Bond of Baltimore, uniforms have eliminated the morning arguments that she had with her 8-year-old daughter over what to wear, a common parental complaint.

“Whatever I put out, she didn’t want,” Bond said. “She said they were laughing at her and saying she was wearing fish heads. If she didn’t feel she was dressed right that day, her whole day was off.”

Germaine Howard in Miami said that since her two youngsters started wearing uniforms, “they made the honor roll, and that’s a first.”

Like some parents, William Zackery, a Miami telecommunications engineer, initially had mixed emotions about uniforms.

“I wasn’t quite sure of the theory behind it,” said Zackery, whose daughters Donnyette and Dominique are wearing uniforms for the first time this year at Drew Elementary and Middle Schools. “At first, I was concerned about the loss of individuality, but it dawned on me that they were starting out on equal footing, so that true individuality would come along the lines of academics. Now, they seem more interested in school. Last year, the kids were more interested in what they looked like instead of what they were in school for.”

For educators, uniforms have cut down on discipline problems, increased school spirit, and created a more positive atmosphere.

“The behavior is changed,” said Dania Lopez, a third-grade teacher at Hialeah. “They take care of everything, the books, the floors, they keep everything neat, the whole room has changed.

“The kids are so orderly and well-behaved that we are wondering when the honeymoon is over,” said Ruth Bukatman, principal at Booker T. Washington Jr. High in Baltimore.

At Howe Elementary School in Philadelphia, “the number of suspensions and discipline problems dropped dramatically,” Principal Evelyn Butler said. “Even the parent participation rate went up. We had a very small home and school association, and since the uniforms, we’ve had more parents involved, volunteering . . . . Since the uniform policy, we’ve been just more together.”

Helena Jones, principal at Roper Jr. High School in Washington, said the reason for the change among students is simple.

“Kids act the way they’re dressed,” said Jones, whose school went to uniforms this year. “If they’re dressed for the beach, they act like they’re at the beach. If they’re dressed for business, they act like they’re here for business.”

Despite all this success, some observers think school uniforms are, like other clothing styles, a trend that will eventually fade.

But that won’t happen if Walter Henry can help it. Every once in a while, the Washington principal lets his elementary students come to class in in regular clothes.

“And every time I do,” he said, “I say, ‘Thank God for uniforms.’ ”