Changing Attire: Students, parents adjusting to switch to school uniforms

Beth Slovic

Thursday, Aug. 26, 2004 | 8:22 a.m.

The flowing navy blue curtains of the store's dressing rooms proved too tempting for Jennifer Omo's young sons.

As Mom rubbed elbows with other back-to-school shoppers patiently sorting through kid-sized racks packed with fall apparel, Scott, 6, and Mark, 7, whizzed in and out of the dressing rooms, ducking under the curtains briefly held aloft by the torrent of wind their running kicked up.

Amid the excitement, Mark had to be reminded to take off the new shirt he was trying on so his mother could pay for it, and to put on the T-shirt he was wearing when he entered the store.

Starting Monday, when Mark begins classes at Twitchell Elementary School, the second grader will don that T-shirt only after school and on weekends. That's because Twitchell is one of nine elementary schools in Clark County with mandatory school uniform policies.

For boys such as Mark, that means khaki or navy blue shorts or slacks and monochromatic polo shirts for the next nine months.

The back-to-school ritual of buying new clothes for the school year has a few extra twists for parents with children enrolled at one of the 27 public schools in the county with strict dress codes or uniform policies.

Short of sending their children to different schools through a zone variance, these parents have few choices but to go along with the prescribed attire. With the start of school around the corner, they're in hot pursuit of items that not only conform with their school's guidelines, but also please their sometimes finicky children and don't overextend their budgets.

A variety of specialty and department stores in the Las Vegas Valley help shoppers achieve this balance.

Campus Club School Uniforms, Target and Mervyn's carry shorts, slacks, polos, jumpers, cardigans and "skorts" (a combination of skirt and shorts) in navy blue and khaki. Stores such as JCPenney, Wal-Mart and Gap Kids also carry the basics, including khaki pants and plain polo shirts.

On Monday at Campus Club School Uniforms, a specialty store with branches in Summerlin and southeast Las Vegas, mothers and fathers with children in tow sorted single-mindedly through clothing racks devoted to items in navy, khaki and white. Along the back wall, more parents searched the folding tables filled with polo shirts in a variety of solid colors and crisply starched slacks.

"It's like the post office at Christmas," joked one Campus Club employee, surveying the crowd. "At the end of the day, I think I'm going to run through those curtains and scream, too."

The slow shift to school uniforms and dress codes has had its share of controversy. As recently as July, Clark County School Board Vice President Larry Mason introduced a measure to make mandatory uniform policies voluntary, citing parents' concerns for students' rights to wear what they want.

His measure failed, but the school board did approve a committee that would monitor parents' concerns, ensuring the debate over mandatory school uniforms would continue.

Despite the rough waters, most shoppers at the Campus Club store at Silverado Ranch Boulevard and Eastern Avenue overwhelmingly supported the policies.

"There are fewer things to worry about in the morning," said Kari Thoresen, the mother of two teenagers at Liberty High School, one of a handful of schools that have adopted "standard academic attire," a dress code created by principals, which does not require the school board's approval.

Thoresen's younger daughter, soon to be a ninth grader at Liberty, nodded her head in agreement. But her older daughter, a rising junior at Liberty, sat in the corner of the store, as if to distance herself from the experience of submitting to a uniform she said she didn't like.

"It's not that standardized," said Thoresen, who said as a teenager she would have liked to have gone to a school with a dress code such as Liberty's.

Robert Ayala, a father of four with two children at Vanderburg Elementary School, was also shopping at Campus Club on Monday. He grew up in Mexico, where secondary schools typically require students to wear uniforms. He said wearing uniforms teaches children to be responsible for their appearance and encourages neatness.

Ayala also noted the benefits to his wallet.

"You can have special clothing for the weekends without spending too much money," he said.

Lyn Anderson, whose 6-year-old son, Mitchell, begins first grade next week at Lamping Elementary School, where uniforms are mandatory, wasn't convinced that uniforms are the best policy.

Anderson, who moved to Southern Nevada from Bellingham, Wash., in June, is going along with the policy, though she would prefer her son wore his own clothing, she said.

"I don't want the expense of purchasing a whole new wardrobe," Anderson said, as she collected her limit of five tops and five bottoms for a week's worth of clothing. On the other hand, she said, "At least everyone looks the same, so there's no passing judgments."

Though some parents of elementary school-aged children have publicly expressed doubts about the benefits of outfitting students in uniforms, the handful of young children shopping at Campus Club all said they liked the uniforms.

Within the limited spectrum of choices, each child expressed some preferences.

Nicole Mason, an 8-year-old Lamping Elementary School student, said she preferred pants to skirts.

Mark Omo, the 7-year-old zooming around the dressing rooms, required a bit of variety in his shirts lest he get bored, his mother said. They had come to Campus Club because it alone sells polo shirts with schools' logos embroidered on them.

Young children are easy to convince of the benefits of school uniforms, said Nina Lemansky, the owner of Campus Club. Often it's parents who need to be swayed, she said.

Though many stores offer good deals on the required attire, prices are not entirely uniform. A boy's monochromatic polo shirt ranges from $6.99 at Target to $10 at Campus Club to $12.50 at Gap Kids. Girls' jumpers start at $10 at Campus Club, but cost up to $11.99 at Target.

Shopping experiences also are uneven, according to what parents have told Lemansky.

"There are too many distractions, if they (parents) go to a department store," Lemansky said. Many parents end up buying more items than they had on their lists, because children succeed in persuading them to buy toys and candy, items Campus Club doesn't sell, Lemansky said.

"I buy what I think parents need," she said.