Update / Follow-up on the news
To improve campus safety and allow children to focus on schoolwork rather than clothes, the Santa Ana Unified School District has passed a mandatory uniform policy for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
The policy takes effect July 1, and the school board is recommending uniforms of navy blue slacks or skirts and white tops. However, each individual school may decide its own colors.
Parents may allow their children to opt out of the mandatory uniform policy.
The issue was one of the first matters decided by newly elected board members Nativo V. Lopez and Aida Espinoza, whose support of uniforms ended months of delays.
The new board members were joined by Trustee Robert W. Balen in voting for the policy. Trustees Audrey Yamagata-Noji and Rosemarie Avila opposed the mandatory uniforms.
Avila’s concerns about the policy included a recent public hearing when just over half of those addressing the school board opposed mandatory uniforms. But a parent survey last year indicated that about 75% of respondents favored uniforms.
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