Uniforms Required at School : Education: The decision by parents is designed to head off potential acts of violence over gang attire at Pacoima elementary campus. An optional dress policy failed to work, officials say.

Vaughn Street Elementary School in Pacoima, the first in the Los Angeles Unified School District to adopt a voluntary uniform policy, will become the first to make them mandatory. Dismayed parents and officials have concluded that the optional plan simply does not work.

The reason is fairly obvious: Youngsters think uniforms--eschewed by more than 60% of the Vaughn student body--”look squarey,” as Vaughn Street fifth-grader David Macias put it.

Other adjectives used by classmates who will not wear the gray and burgundy outfits included “yucky” and “ugly.” Uniformed youngsters, on the other hand, prefer words like “pretty,” “comfortable” and “neat.”

Stylistic differences will soon become moot. Vaughn Street parents, who continue to fear that gang-style attire could prompt acts of violence, have voted overwhelmingly to require all 1,150 students to wear uniforms.

Parents were able to establish the new policy, which takes effect in July, because the campus is among the district’s experimental charter schools where parents and officials have more control.

Last year, similar concerns about gang violence prompted the Long Beach Unified School District to become the first urban public school system in the nation to adopt a mandatory uniform policy.

Once the trademark of exclusive private and parochial schools, uniforms have become a national trend at public schools in the ‘90s as an antidote to the spread of gangs, whose members’ baggy pants and adopted colors are often viewed as invitations to violence.

More than 200 schools in the Los Angeles district, nearly a third of all campuses, have voluntary uniform policies.

Such policies need to be mandatory because “if 100% of the kids are not wearing uniforms, then the whole idea quickly becomes uncool,” said Rochelle Neal, principal of La Mesa Junior High School in the Santa Clarita Valley, where uniforms have been mandatory since the new junior high opened in September. The uniform policy has made La Mesa a popular choice in the William S. Hart district, which has an open enrollment policy. With an expected capacity enrollment of 1,020 in the fall, La Mesa already has a waiting list of 130 seventh- and eighth-graders.

“I firmly believe voluntary programs do not work,” Neal said. “The kids that you want most to wear a uniform--the gangbangers, the ones with not a lot of parental control at home and who cause the most trouble at school--will not wear them.”

The alternatives at La Mesa are simple: If you will not wear the school’s black and teal colors, you can go to one of three other junior highs in the district--although two of those are considering mandatory uniform rules.

Until now, most public schools across the nation have adopted voluntary standards, largely to offset legal challenges that questioned the constitutionality of mandatory uniforms. School officials say they have to constantly promote uniforms by conducting contests and urging parents to participate. One school recently put on a uniform fashion show during a parent open house.

The state Education Code, as amended last year, permits individual schools and districts to mandate uniforms as long as parents are allowed to either transfer their children to a school where uniforms are not required or sign a paper exempting their children from the rule. In the Long Beach district, fewer than 1% of parents have exercised the waiver and many of those have later rescinded their action, officials said.

The law previously allowed schools to ban students from wearing gang-related colors and accessories such as bandannas, caps and jackets with the logos of sports teams such as the Los Angeles Raiders.

However, many parents and administrators felt that stronger control over student attire was needed because of growing pressure among elementary-age children and preteens to wear expensive, brand-name clothing and shoes. Parents complained that the cost of clothes had taken over as the criteria of a child’s acceptance or rejection at school. In some cases, children have been injured or killed for their clothing.

While the custom of wearing uniforms at public schools is nothing new--middy blouses were the norm through the 1930s--many schools, particularly on the East Coast, began turning to uniforms in the late 1980s as a stabilizer in the clothes competition.

Educators also credit uniforms with bolstering school spirit and promoting better behavior, although opponents argue there is no sound evidence that uniforms prevent gang violence.

On the West Coast, the idea is particularly popular among Latino families and immigrants accustomed to children wearing school uniforms in their native countries in Central and South America, Europe and Asia.

The legislation that amended California’s Education Code was authored by former Sen. Phil Wyman (R-Bakersfield), a Kern County rancher who said he was inspired by a high school student’s petition drive in 1993 calling for uniforms. The measure was signed in August by Gov. Pete Wilson.

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At Vaughn Street Elementary, where a majority of students come from low-income families, parents are organizing the sale of used uniforms and homemade uniforms for those who cannot afford to buy new ones.

Proponents expect the mandatory policy to address a phenomenon they began noticing early on with the voluntary approach: that younger children enjoyed wearing the uniforms because they made them feel part of the school, but abandoned their use as they grew older because they were not popular with independent-minded preteens.