Uniformed Pupils May Be Trend-Setters

In a move prompted by parents who want to protect their children from gang members, pupils at Vaughn Street Elementary School in Pacoima on Friday became the first public school children in Los Angeles to wear uniforms.

“This way they won’t get confused with gang members and get shot,” said Ernesto Rojas, as he walked his uniform-clad daughter Karina, 8, to school Friday.

Widespread interest in the optional uniform program by parents in other parts of the city suggests that more schools may follow suit.

Although only about 10% of Vaughn’s 1,000 students wore the maroon-and-gray ensemble selected by a parents group, more than 100 have signed up for a lottery to receive free uniforms through an anonymous $5,000 donation.

Parents voted for the uniform option in November to protect children from being mistaken for gang members if they inadvertently wear colors associated with gangs, such as red or blue. Vaughn Street School is on the edge of Pacoima in a neighborhood known for violent turf battles with rival San Fernando gangs.

Elementary school children are increasingly imitating the garb of older gang members, said Vaughn Principal Emma Wilson. She said a parent awareness class taught by Community Youth Gang Services last summer made parents aware of this trend.

“It’s frightening,” Wilson said.

“It’s as far down as kindergarten, first grade,” said Vaughn parent Hilda Ochoa, who helped lead the uniform crusade. “There’s a gang around here that wears the black Raiders jacket and you see little kids wearing those.”

Ochoa said she first became concerned last year when her children reported being shoved around by older youngsters on days when they wore the school color--red--which is associated with factions of the Bloods gang. School officials changed the color to blue, but blue is the color associated with Crips gangs.

Now the official school colors are maroon and gray, like the uniforms.

After widespread news reports of the November vote, Ochoa said she was contacted by parents from several other schools--including Sylmar Elementary School and El Rincon Elementary in Culver City. Wilson, who said she has heard from several more, added that the uniform idea pleases parents from Mexico and Central America--the homelands of most Vaughn parents--because uniforms are common at public schools in their native countries.

Sandy Watzman of Sherman Oaks, whose son attends an Encino junior high school, said she has contacted Kids Limited, the firm that supplies Vaughn’s uniforms. She said she plans to raise the idea at a future parents meeting.

“My son knows which students are gang members or want-to-be gang members,” Watzman said. “With uniforms, you wouldn’t have the young student trying to look like the gang member.”

But on Friday, most parents dropping off uniform-clad children at Vaughn Street School cited a practical reason for making the $50 to $75 expenditure: a less complicated morning dressing ritual and less clothing competition at school.

“There’s none of this crying in the morning about, ‘What am I going to wear?’ and ‘I don’t want to wear that,”’ parent Carmel Equihua said in Spanish. “They look more presentable.”

Equihua bought matching plaid material for hair bows and folder covers for her two daughters, Janet, 7, and Johanna, 9. Johanna said it took her just minutes to get ready for school Friday morning, instead of the normal half-hour.

“And it’s pretty,” she said, eyeing her plaid jumper.

In general, the uniforms got better reviews from girls than from boys.

Third-grader Jose Rodriguez topped his uniform with a leather jacket and slicked-back hair. He said he would rather be wearing leather pants or jeans.

“It’s kind of OK, but it’s not my style,” he said.

His friend, Jose Rezendez, 10, wore a hooded sweat shirt and faded orange jeans instead.

“I don’t want it. I don’t like it,” he said of the uniforms.

The effort to lift peer pressure to dress in expensive, name-brand clothes is not completely solved by uniforms, parents said, because some students who could not afford the trendy clothes also cannot afford the uniforms.

One first grader, when asked why she was not wearing a uniform, cast her eyes to the ground. “Because my dad doesn’t have much money,” she said in Spanish.

Wilson said that at least 100 parents have signed up to be part of a lottery that will determine which students receive free uniforms through a $5,000 donation, made anonymously earlier this year.