Panel to Study Having Uniform Policy

A panel of parents, teachers and school administrators will begin a series of meetings this month to discuss a mandatory, districtwide uniform policy for elementary school students, deputy administrator Helen Stainer said Monday.

The committee will make its recommendations to the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education within six months, Stainer said.

Twenty-eight of the district’s 30 elementary schools now have an optional school uniform policy, typically blue bottoms and white tops. The 15 secondary schools do not have uniform policies, Stainer said, because there has been little parent interest.

In 1994, Stainer said, a districtwide committee held a series of meetings with parents and concluded that each elementary school should set its own policy on uniforms. The panel disbanded in 1995.

Since a Long Beach Unified School District mandatory uniform policy has been in the news, however, the Santa Ana school district has received hundreds of calls and petition signatures from elementary school parents asking for a similar policy, Stainer said.

Two years ago, Long Beach became the nation’s first district to require uniforms for elementary and middle schools. President Clinton praised the district’s policy during a visit there in February.

At a board meeting last week, Wilson Elementary School parent Martha Torres spoke on behalf of other parents and urged the board to adopt a mandatory school uniform policy.

“The children concentrate more on studying rather than clothing,” Torres said.

Stainer said two parents have contacted the district to say that they oppose mandatory uniforms because they infringe on a student’s rights to dress as he or she pleases. Stainer said those concerns will have to be balanced with the concerns of parents advocating uniforms.