La Habra Tries Uniform Look in School Wear

In a pioneering effort to fight both gangs and peer pressure to dress expensively, the La Habra City School District will ask all students in kindergarten through fifth grade to wear only white and navy outfits when school opens next week.

The district, which has 4,800 students, is believed to be the first in Orange County and one of just a handful in the state to opt for standard dress districtwide.

“I don’t know of any other school district that has decided to do this,” said John F. Dean, Orange County superintendent of education. “I’m delighted that La Habra is doing this, and it’s something we’ll be watching with interest.”

District Supt. Richard Hermann said the voluntary dress code calling for white shirts and navy pants or skirts is aimed at eliminating gang colors from campuses, both to diminish the gangs’ influence and to prevent attacks on students unwittingly wearing colors of rival gangs.

“In addition to being an anti-gang effort, this will help parents with the pressures of buying clothing for their children--not having to keep up with the Joneses,” Hermann said.

Many school districts, including Garden Grove, Tustin, Santa Ana and Orange, have adopted dress regulations that specifically restrict clothing associated with gangs, such as baseball caps, Los Angeles Raiders jackets, baggy pants, oversize shirts and bandannas.

But Susie Lange, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education in Sacramento, said the next step--completely standardized dressing--has been adopted by only a few public school districts in California. The state Supreme Court has ruled that uniform-wearing is acceptable in public schools as long as it’s not mandatory.

In La Habra, students will be asked to wear white shirts or blouses with navy pants, shorts, skirts or jumpers. No single brand is required.

“The parents can buy the clothes anywhere they want,” said Rosemary Herendeen, director of staff development and curriculum.

Hermann stressed that children do not have to wear the outfits if their parents oppose the idea.

“We fully respect parents who do not go along with this idea,” he said. But questionnaires sent to all homes last May found that about 79% of parents of lower-grade students approved the idea of standard dress, La Habra Assistant Supt. Ruth Fehr said.

“It was also approved by most of the parents of students in grades six through eight, but we decided to implement this gradually by starting in the lower grades,” she said.

Police in La Habra, population 52,000, applauded the new policy.

“Over the long run this is going to be beneficial to the parents and school children,” Police Capt. John Rees said. “I have a daughter who’s going to start kindergarten this fall, and she’ll be among those wearing uniforms. Maybe some people feel the children will be losing individuality, but I don’t think it’s a significant price to pay for the safety of our children.”

In Santa Ana, two public elementary schools, Heninger and Pio Pico, also will institute a standard dress policy this fall. But unlike La Habra, the Santa Ana Unified School District is not doing it districtwide.

GRASP (Group Resolving Anti-Social Problems), a new, countywide anti-gang group in Orange County, has advocated uniforms in public schools as the prime way of cutting down gang influence.

Katherine Hatch Smith of Anaheim, founder of GRASP, said Tuesday that she is “ecstatic” about La Habra’s plans.

“This is just wonderful for those children,” said Smith, who is also an anti-gang adviser for the Orange County Department of Education. “This gives those children a measure of safety and (will help to) reduce violence in the schools. Those parents and school officials have given the children an act of love. I want to congratulate them and send them our thanks for what they’re doing for children.”

Smith said that the new policy also helps combat constant pressures on parents to buy expensive, name-brand clothes for their children, and that she hopes the move will prompt all Orange County school districts to consider such a move.

Renee Krinker, president of a parent-teacher association in La Habra, said the standard dress policy is “great. My daughter was in the second grade last year, and one day she came home from school saying other children wouldn’t play with her because of what she was wearing that day. What she was wearing apparently wasn’t the ‘in’ thing that day. That’s pretty silly at the second-grade level, but it happens.”

Judy Wolfe, principal of Ladera Palma Elementary, said: “Children are going to see that uniforms are now the ‘in’ thing. I don’t expect all children will be wearing uniforms when school starts, but I think it will spread, sort of by the ‘contagion effect.’ I think it’s a very good idea for the schools. I think it will add what I call the ‘calmness effect.’ It’s another way of adding structure and parameters; it’s a positive equalizer.”

* SCHOOL DAYS: Key dates for all Orange County public school districts. B3