Officials Ease Strict Plan for School Uniforms : Ventura: Guidelines for sixth- through eighth-graders will be voluntary. Decision comes after opposition from principal.

Faced with opposition from one middle school principal, Ventura school officials have retreated from a proposal that all sixth- through eighth-grade students wear uniforms.

Although three middle school principals are still considering policies on uniforms, Supt. Joseph Spirito said Tuesday that any such guidelines on student dress would be voluntary.

One Ventura middle school principal who supports school uniforms said she would find it difficult to enact such a policy if it were optional.

“I have a question mark about whether it would work at this point,” Anacapa Middle School Principal Charlotte McElroy said. “The more outs you have with something, of course it’s going to be harder to enforce.”

McElroy, Spirito and Cabrillo Middle School Principal Kris Bergstrom proposed two weeks ago that all of the Ventura Unified School District’s four middle schools adopt mandatory uniform policies next fall.

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At a meeting of the four principals last week, Balboa Middle School Principal Helena Torres-Reaves said she had found enough support among parents and staff to explore the issue further.

But DeAnza Middle School Principal Dave Myers showed no interest in the proposal.

“We don’t feel we would be gaining enough to justify the time and energy that we’d be putting into the issue,” Myers said Tuesday. “Basically we’d rather spend our time talking about character traits or academic issues rather than whether the pants are a little baggier than everyone would like.”

Myers said DeAnza parents and teachers were particularly turned off that such a policy would be voluntary.

The principal said he questioned Spirito on this point, asking him directly how the district would respond to students who refused to comply with a school’s requirement to wear uniforms.

A new state law that takes effect Jan. 1 allows school districts to make school uniforms mandatory and gives schools authority to transfer students who refuse to comply with such a rule.

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But the superintendent told Myers that the district would not force students to transfer to other schools, Myers said.

“The district is not going to make it mandatory,” Myers said. “If that’s the case, we’re not gaining anything.”

Spirito said Tuesday he was unwilling to take a hard-nosed approach to school uniforms.

“I’m staying with the spirit of choice,” he said. “Forcing them to transfer out does not make good public relations. I would not do that. I see that as punitive.”

Spirito added that the district’s proposed back-to-basics school, which officials hope to launch next year, would require student uniforms. But parents would elect to send their children to this school and would sign a contract agreeing to abide by the school’s rules.

For other schools, Spirito said he thinks principals could have success with voluntary uniform policies if parents get behind the idea.

“If the parents support it, the kids are going to do it,” he said.

The only Ventura County public school where students wear uniforms is Garden Grove Elementary in Simi Valley, where the policy on dress is optional.

Since Garden Grove set the policy this year, student participation has fluctuated: between 50% and 70% of the children wear uniforms on any given day.

Balboa, Cabrillo and Anacapa middle schools will survey parents about student uniforms this month and next month. The schools plan to decide by February whether to enact such policies next year.