A Uniform Success : Most Pupils Comply With New School-Dress Rule. A Bonus: Fewer Playground Scuffles

Most elementary and middle-school students in Long Beach are complying with the district’s new voluntary policy to wear uniforms in class, administrators said.

Schools reported that 90% to 98% of their students were dressed in uniforms during the first week of classes, administrators said. Playgrounds that were once full of children in denim jeans and T-shirts are now full of students attired in white tops and navy blue skirts and pants.

Administrators say they have already noted an improvement in behavior. For example, schoolyard scuffles have declined at Clara Barton Elementary School, where all of the 995 students must wear ties as well as uniforms.

“You just can’t fight when you’re dressed up,” Principal Lue Dean Magee said.

The Long Beach school board’s policy requires students from kindergarten through eighth grade to be in uniform. Board members claim uniforms help students learn and may help protect them from gang violence.

Parents who object to uniforms must request an exemption for their children at individual schools. But so far, administrators said, few parents have filed such requests.

District officials say they will not begin enforcing the uniform policy until Oct. 14. Enforcement will be left up to officials at individual schools.

Principals at many schools said they favor rewarding students who wear uniforms rather than punishing those who don’t. Before the deadline, administrators plan to speak to students who show up at school without uniforms and don’t have an exemption.

“We’re not embarrassing the child in front of anyone. We’re just asking them if there’s a reason they don’t have a uniform,” said Marnos B. Lelesi, principal at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School. “To me, it isn’t a greater expectation than we would have for a student who didn’t do their homework.”

Lelesi said she and other administrators have found the main reason children have not worn uniforms is that parents can’t afford them.

Most schools are still seeking donations of uniforms for needy students, but so far demand has far exceeded donations.

The Rick Rackers Junior Auxiliary of the Assistance League of Long Beach is expected to donate two complete uniforms to 1,200 children this year, a spokeswoman said.

Some schools are using their own money to buy uniforms to lend to students, or have approached church organizations, service clubs, thrift stores and individuals for contributions.

Administrators at Benjamin Franklin Middle School spent about $200 to buy shirts, pants and skirts to lend, but that provides uniforms for only a fraction of the students who need them. About 75 to 100 of the school’s 1,200 students don’t wear uniforms, Principal Gregg Stone said.

The borrowed uniforms are handed out at the start of the day but must be returned after school, Stone said, adding that staff members are washing dirty uniforms. “At times, I’ve taken a bag home and done it myself,” he said.

Stone said he has not received any letters from parents requesting an exemption from the policy. In fact, some parents said they are trying to save money to buy several sets of uniforms.

Some opponents of uniforms say, however, that most parents still do not know the policy is voluntary.

Lawyer Eugene E. Kinsey said he and other parents are upset that principals at two schools said uniforms are mandatory and warned that they plan to punish students who fail to wear them.

One flyer at Hoover Middle School incorrectly reported that students would be penalized if they failed to wear a uniform, district spokesman Dick Van Der Laan said. The statement has since been corrected.

A new state law allows public schools to require uniforms, but must allow exemptions for families opposed to uniforms.

Kinsey said he and other parents are distributing flyers to students and their parents reminding them of their right to opt out.