Uniform Policy OKd for Frank Intermediate

After receiving overwhelming parent support and approval from Oxnard Elementary School District trustees, Frank Intermediate School officials have agreed to require students to wear uniforms starting in August.

The school plans to host fashion shows during the next few months to display the array of white, collared shirts and navy blue or beige slacks or skirts that their 1,279 students could don.

Parents believe uniforms could end the struggle to control what their kids wear to school, avoid having their children mistaken for gang members and keep students from competing with each other through clothing, said Principal Pete Nichols.

“The unique thing about this is that it was not the administration’s idea,” Nichols said. “This came exclusively from the parents, and what the administration did was become facilitator.”

Ninety-seven percent of the parents polled in October and November favored the idea of school uniforms, with 518 of the school’s 1,000 parents responding. Many Latino parents who wore uniforms when attending school especially supported the idea, school officials said.

“It had very very high parent and teacher support, and when we heard the kids supported it too, that really impressed me,” said trustee James Suter, who voted with the other four trustees Wednesday in favor of the policy. “Hopefully it will catch on and more will want to do it. I think it’s a great idea.”

Under state law, students and parents can choose to opt out of a policy that requires uniforms.

Frank Intermediate will join a number of schools scattered throughout the county that recently began requiring uniforms. Emilie Ritchen Elementary School became the first to start a uniform policy in the Oxnard district last fall.

E.O. Green Junior High in the Hueneme Elementary School District and Rio Real Elementary and Rio Del Valle Intermediate schools, both in the Rio Elementary District, also embarked on their uniform policies at the beginning of the school year.

But other campuses--such as Balboa Middle School in Ventura, Fillmore junior and senior high schools--opted to go with stricter dress codes next fall, rather than uniforms, after parent surveys showed less support than administrators had hoped for.