Proposal for school uniforms is rejected

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Friday, May 28, 2004 | 11:09 a.m.

A split vote by the Clark County School Board doomed a proposal Thursday that would have allowed campuses to set mandatory uniform policies for students.

The proposal called for the School Board to declare as successful a two-year pilot study of mandatory uniforms at five Henderson elementary schools and allow other campuses to adopt the policy, provided they surveyed parents for support.

Four additional Henderson elementary schools hoped to begin requiring uniforms with the start of the new academic year in August, having gotten the required 51 percent of surveys returned with at least 70 percent in favor of the policy.

Several board members said that while they agreed uniforms likely improved a school's overall environment, the potential benefits did not convince them that a district-wide policy was warranted.

"This mandatory thing is just getting out of hand," Mason said. "Nothing's broken and we're trying to fix it."

The motion failed on a 3-3 vote with member Sheila Moulton abstaining. Board President Susan Brager-Wellman, Vice President Larry Mason and Denise Brodsky opposed the proposal. Members Mary Beth Scow, Shirley Barber and Ruth Johnson voted in favor of the proposal.

Brager-Wellman said she would be more inclined to support the policy if it had been limited to the southeast region, which includes all of the schools that have expressed an interest in adopting mandatory uniforms.

"I have a real problem with forcing this on the entire district," Brager-Wellman said. "I would have liked to see a representative from each region on the committee that drafted the proposal."

Following the vote, Carolyn Reedom, assistant superintendent of the district's southeast region, said she plans to come to the next School Board meeting June 10 and ask that the four elementary schools -- Bennett, Harmon, Hummel and Glen Taylor -- be added to the existing pilot study for the 2004-05 academic year.

Whether or not the proposal will be modified or brought back to the School Board will need to be discussed by the schools, parents and staff, said Lauren Kohut-Rost, superintendent of the district's southeast region.

A half-dozen parents and principals spoke in favor of the mandatory uniform proposal while two parents opposed it.

Lona Finley, who doesn't want Taylor to require her son to wear a uniform, said she believed more parents would have spoken against the idea if the School Board meeting hadn't been scheduled on the evening before a four-day weekend.

Deanna Wright, another parent who opposed the policy, told School Board members that research on the effects of uniforms on student achievement has been largely inconclusive.

"School climate or school spirit is not built on how children are dressed," Wright said. "It is built on how teachers and staff treat children." Trevor Rikalo, a fourth grader at Sewell Elementary School, which has been participating in the pilot study since August, urged board members to support the proposal.

"It's easy for me to get dressed in the morning," Rikalo said. "In the classroom we are focused on learning, not on what everyone else is wearing. Isn't that what we're really here for, for learning?'

The proposal also did not explain how the policy would be reviewed after the first year, Finley said. If the schools were allowed to establish mandatory uniforms the surveys should be conducted annually, as the student population changes, she said.

Shirley Barber said she was in favor of the policy, having seen first-hand the positive school climate created at campuses that require uniforms. Mary Beth Scow, who represents District A, which includes Henderson, suggested the board consider raising the survey requirements to 75 percent returned in favor of uniforms.

"This isn't a policy that says a school has to do it (adopt uniforms), I see it as a policy that would provide for schools that have the desire and want to do it," Scow said.