Since kindergarten, the Walle kids of Tacoma – 10-year-old Annabelle, 12-year-old Frank and 13-year-old Jacob – have worn uniforms to school.
So pulling on their Mason Middle School red or gray sweat shirts over uniform polo shirts and blue jeans for another fall season is no big deal for the Walle boys.
And Annabelle, a fifth-grader at Washington-Hoyt Elementary School, doesn’t mind dressing in her red sweater, denim skirt and white leggings – one of several options available to her.
“We’re kind of used to it,” said their friend Jack Norris, 12.
Uniforms make it easier on parents, too, says the Walle kids’ mom, Liz.
“We have no arguments about what to wear, our school clothes budget is lowered and there is no peer pressure about wearing the most popular brands to school,” she said.
Those same benefits now apply to all sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders attending public schools in Tacoma. This fall, Jason Lee Middle School became the last of Tacoma’s nine middle schools to require uniforms.
Likewise, the drawbacks of mandatory uniforms – cost, hassle, limits on personal freedom – now apply across the board.
Some in the community have questioned how the decision was made at Jason Lee,,Welcome to contract us and especially jordan 6 rings. and whether uniforms are affordable for families in a school where most students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Elsewhere in the South Sound, uniforms are less prevalent. In Federal Way, four of the district’s seven middle schools have uniform policies. Some suburban districts, such as Clover Park and Puyallup, have no schools requiring uniforms.
Others, such as Bethel and Federal Way, leave it up to each school, as Tacoma does.
The Tacoma School District has had a policy permitting school uniforms since 2000, but it makes them optional and leaves the decision up to each school.
While many elementary schools and all middle schools in Tacoma have uniform policies, the city’s high schools do not. Instead they have dress codes prohibiting gang attire or provocative dress, for example.replica nike
Policies in Tacoma vary widely from school to school. Of the city’s 24 elementary schools, most have a full-fledged uniform policy that prescribes what color and style of clothes kids can wear.Any business that is just starting out and will not incur a lot of online sales yet, could consider third party merchant account
Polo shirts and school-logo sweatshirts are commonly approved, along with khaki, navy blue or black pants or shorts. Some schools ban jeans, while others allow them if they fit in with the school’s color scheme.
Many schools mandate that kids wear shirts that are plain colors, without any kind of writing, logos or artwork. Educators say this prevents kids from showing off expensive brand name shirts at school, while it keeps them from wearing shirts bearing potentially offensive writing or artwork.
Nine Tacoma elementary schools have dress codes but no uniforms.
“I love the uniforms,” said Leslie Young, who has a daughter at Tacoma’s Giaudrone Middle School and another child who just finished there.
She says school uniforms “keep things equalized more about academics and less about fashion and gangs.”
The News Tribune used Facebook and phone interviews to talk to parents about what their children wear to school.
Most parents interviewed for this story are big fans of uniforms, including one Puyallup mom who wishes her children’s school required them.
“All three of my children are in elementary school, and it is getting harder and harder to purchase clothing that doesn’t look too grown up on them,” said Courtney Nicodemus, citing the miniskirts she sees in stores and on elementary schoolkids.
She believes that having children dress in a prescribed manner for school puts them in a better mood to learn.
“If you’re going to school in a uniform, that means they will be in school mode,” she said.
But not every parent is a believer. Some say that allowing middle schoolers to develop an independent sense of dress is important to their development.
“It’s healthier for kids to have to find their own way,” said Lisa Wooten, whose son attended Mason and now is a ninth-grader at Tacoma’s Science and Math Institute, where uniforms are not required.
Some complain that the school-logo sweatshirts favored by kids are too expensive, often running $20 to $25 each.
At Jason Lee, Principal Jon Kellett said the school worked through the PTA to gather input from students, parents and staff members last year. He said the PTA plans to sell school shirts at a reasonable cost, and that there’s help available for families who can’t afford uniforms.
Some schools operate a uniform bank, soliciting donations of both used uniform gear and cash to purchase new clothing for families that need help.
Winona Ormbrek, who has two daughters at Jason Lee, said she understands why school officials like uniforms.
But she said investing in two uniforms each for her two daughters (so they have something to wear while one set of clothes is being laundered) strained her budget. Shopping for shirts in just the right styles and colors gray, khaki and black was also time-consuming, she said.
“Not to mention making the kids tuck in their shirts at one of the most self-conscious times of their lives,” she adds.
Over the years, a few middle schools have relaxed the tuck-in rule, recognizing that tucked in shirts emphasize changing body shapes that can embarrass kids in early adolescence.
While parochial and private schools have required uniforms for many years, the trend also has been catching on in public schools in the past decade. In 2000, about 12 percent of public schools required uniforms, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. By 2008,,Designer Adidas Jacket collectors also look for great bargains of wholesale jeans on this international marketplace and us the figure had grown to 18 percent.
Dress codes are even more popular, with more than half of public school principals nationally reporting in 2008 that their school enforced such standards.
David Brower, principal at Federal Way’s Sacajawea Middle School, has worked in schools both with and without uniforms. Sacajawea asks students to wear khaki, tan or navy Dockers-style pants, with white, black or navy blue polos. School shirts are allowed. Jeans are not.
Brower said he wasn’t sure what to think about uniforms when he arrived at Sacajawea in 2009. But he says they offer advantages, and he cites three broad categories.
Safety: “I need to know who’s on my team, and who’s not,” Brower says. With state Route 99 on one side of his campus and Federal Way High School nearby, uniform colors give his faculty members an immediate visual cue of which students belong.
Focus: Uniforms, Brower says, send a message to students that “I’m here for school, I’m not here for the fashion show.”
Equity: In a school where just over half the students are poor enough to receive free or reduced-price lunches, Brower defines his student body as “a school of haves and have-nots.” Uniforms, he said, “give everyone access to the same options.”
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