Ana's school recently sent home a new memo on the dress code

[conuly]

Starting in September, sweaters must match the dress code as well.

I've got no problem with this. It's a uniform school, the kids wear a uniform, I'm okay with the sweaters having to match the uniform. (In fact, I've never understood why the kids get to wear non-uniform sweaters all day. Why not ask them to put it in the cubby with their coats?)

I do, however, have a problem with the stated reasoning, that it's "distracting". This is nonsense. If your kids are distracted by a red sweater instead of a navy one, this is a problem with the kids, not the clothes. Why not just say "We like the way it looks" instead? That, at least, is the truth.

Also, I have a problem with the way it's all typed up, but I'll reproduce it for you in all its italicized (the whole letter is in italics!) glory.

Dear Parents/Guardians of our "little dolphins",

      Our "Awards Assembly" will be held tomorrow. Please make sure that your child comes to school in their school clothing. All students are to come to school every day with a light blue top and dark blue bottoms. They are also required to wear sneakers. If they wear boots due to the cold or inclement weather, please have them bring sneakers so that they may change into them here. They are only permitted to wear "dress down clothing" on designated "Dress Down Days".

      Beginning September, 2012 students will only be permitted to wear dark blue sweaters and or dark blue "hoodies". No other sweater will be permitted to be worn in school. This will be part of the "school clothing". The reason for such is that too many students are wearing sweaters that "distract other students". Dark blue sweaters and/or "hoodies" may also be purcased at "Kid's Place", which is located on Forest Avenue in the TJ Maxx Shopping Center. We are implementing this in September to give everyone enough time to make this change. We thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

      Every child was given a homework packet during the winter recess. Unfortunately, some of the students did not return their completed packets. No awards will be given to students who do not complete their homework assignments and return them to school when they are due. Homework is essential to promote success in school and responsibility in life. The teachers work very hard at preparing homework to match your child's needs. Please make sure that they complete their homework nightly.

      On behalf of the entire Staff, we would like to wish everyone a very Happy and Healthy New Year!

Respectfully,

(Principal's name)

Whoever types these things up needs to have her quotes key and formatting confiscated. It's for the greater good. (Also, notice that sometimes the punctuation is inside the bold and sometimes it's not? Yeah, that's not me being inconsistent, it's them. If I'm inconsistent, I'm the only one who looks bad. When they're inconsistent, the whole school looks bad.) And don't get me started on the "Homework is essential" crap.

Comments

[rho]

*whimper*

That is all.

[adrian_turtle]

The writing is unfortunate, yes.

I do see where they're coming from with "distracting." The problem is that there are two types of school dress codes--they serve entirely different purposes, but people talk about them with the same words. There's "don't wear any shirts with writing or pictures on them, don't wear gang colors, don't wear anything sexually provocative." It's a different kind of dress code from "wear a white shirt and navy pants."

A sweater with a big picture of Tigger on the back, and some cute saying, has a lot more potential to distract the kid in the desk behind than the plain red sweater you were imagining. Would it make more sense to say "Wear any sweater you like, so long as it's plain?" maybe. But they stopped aiming for minimally-restrictive rules some time ago.

[conuly]

I'm not sure if the random quotes are worse than the random bolding. I should do a poll.

[siderea]

Yes. There's an additional form of "distracting" though. Part of the point of some school uniforms is to reduce the obviousness of socioeconomic class in the classroom: if everyone has to wear the same thing, the more affluent students can show off the fact by wearing designer clothes that the less affluent students covet.

Seeing that this motivates a lot of youth crime, from shop lifting, to "street" crimes (that fund buying nice clothes[*]), even to incidents of armed robbery of clothes right off their peer's backs (there's been some stabbings for sneakers, I recall) -- I can see their point.

[* I work with adult offenders in the criminal justice system who have substance abuse problems. When I take a criminal history, and they tell me they were offending at 14, I ask them, "what did you want that money so badly for?" and the second most common answer (right after "drugs", of course) is "nice clothes". My impression off the top of my head is that all my urban African-American inmates have talked about that. And more than talked about it -- dress in crisp, new, fashionable ("gangsta"/"hiphop" fashionable) clothes coming to my office, when they're having trouble getting train fare together.]

[mc776]

At first I wondered why you were griping about such trivial matters of another person's form.

And then I understood.

[conuly]

Let's be fair here. I really would gripe about actually trivial matters.

[conuly]

Also, you should know that this isn't a one-time-only thing. EVERYTHING they send home is like this!

[mc776]

Hey waitaminute it just sunk in for me this is from a school

:(

[conuly]

At least everything is spelled correctly.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Perhaps by "distracting other students", they mean that some kids wear "cool" sweaters/hoodies, and others wear "uncool" hand-me-down stuff/ things the other kids think is childish/ whatever is being considered uncool these days, and THAT is distracting in a way because it's drawing attention and the other kids react positively or negatively to the sweaters. So if everyone wears the same navy sweaters with no logos or pop stars or Bob the Builder or whatever on them, that actually is one thing less for the students to notice/ bully other kids with/ admire/ whatever.

Beyond that... pffffff.

Yeah, this.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

That "only permitted" bugs me more the longer I look at it.

I sometimes fantasize about getting a missive this badly presented, proofing it with a red pen, then doing one of those Hollywood job applications (you know, the one where the applicant barges in on the HR rep--or someone who doesn't even normally do hiring--and magically gets the job due to pure chutzpah).

[conuly]

They're not going to wear the same sweaters. Trust me.

Re: Yeah, this.

[conuly]

Well, you can always try!

Re: Yeah, this.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

I think that only works if a) you're at least Hollywood Homely (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodHomely) and b) the scriptwriter is on your side.

ETA: besides, we don't get those kinds of letters anyway.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

If it's a uniform school, obviously the sweaters and hoodies ought to match the uniform; otherwise what's the point of having uniforms?

However, the health and comfort of the students ought to hold a higher priority than their visual uniformity. This would be why teachers are not making students put their non-uniform sweaters and hoodies in their cubbies: how heartless would it be to take a child's sweater away and make her be cold all day long?

More to the point, since this is a bureaocratic system we're discussing, how vulnerable to a lawsuit would the school be, if that child went home and immediately developed raging pneumonia? What would the press do with that?

Uniforms are not for the benefit of children. They're for the convenience of adults. The children aren't being 'distracted' by sweaters - seriously, give me a break! - it's the adults who are being distracted by the childrens' expressions of individuality.

No, the kids aren't going to wear the same sweaters. Some will have Neiman Marcus and some will have Goodwill, and there will probably be class distinctions made on that basis, by the teachers if not by the children. The children are nore likely to base them on who's got the coolest electronics at home, because grade-schoolers aren't usually that fashion-conscious yet.

[pne.livejournal.com]

No, the kids aren't going to wear the same sweaters. Some will have Neiman Marcus and some will have Goodwill, and there will probably be class distinctions made on that basis, by the teachers if not by the children.

I wonder whether you could get around this by doing uniforms the way I imagine it's done in the armed forces (or the police force, or security guards, or similar uniformed jobs): you get issued one rather than buying your own.

Then everyone has exactly the same brand of pullover, etc., and of exactly the same age and initial condition.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

it's the adults who are being distracted by the childrens' expressions of individuality.

Actually, I don't get that argument. Over here, we very rarely have school uniforms - no, not even "dark bottoms, light top" or anything of the sort. Most schools don't even have a "not too sexy" rule! And yet, for some reason, the adults can handle that just fine. If someone is distracted so easily as by different colours and shapes of clothing, maybe they shouldn't teach groups of human individuals in the first place?

[conuly]

how heartless would it be to take a child's sweater away and make her be cold all day long?

They do have central heating.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Which is why I wondered at sweaters being an issue at all.

Around here we have lots of brainless CA immigrants who insist on wearing shorts in forty-degree weather, and then gripe if the classroom isn't heated to a volcanic degree. Consequently, anyone who actually dresses for the weather quickly grows too warm for comfort (I've started sweating in college because they kept the place at almost eighty for the doofuses who would NOT dress warmly. When the high temperature for the day is thirty-six, I feel shorts and a tee shirt are just not appropriate.)

[conuly]

High schools here do have show-offy boys who insist on wearing bright colored shorts as soon as the weather hits freezing... but I think in that case the point is to highlight how manly they are to be freezing their asses off. Complaining about the heating would very much undercut that.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

In the UK, where school uniforms are the norm, you usually have to buy the specific school uniform items with school logos. I've never heard of a school just giving colour guidance, though it's not that uncommon for children to be permitted (begrudgingly) to wear plain jumpers/sweatshirts/polo shirts in the correct colour. But they wouldn't be branded still, so the class distinction would only be in whether yours was the super-cheap type from the supermarket type or came from a more expensive High Street chain. And that's not overly obvious just from looking.

So your school uniform might have a sweatshirt like this (http://www.newlandstjohnsschool.co.uk/p_About_Us.ikml) but be happy for children to wear a plain royal blue sweatshirt, which could be bought cheaply from a supermarket (http://direct.asda.com/george/school/unisex/school-sweatshirt-unisex-blue/GEM70153,default,pd.html) or at a higher price from a department store (http://www.johnlewis.com/77291/Product.aspx). But you couldn't wear something like this (http://www.gap.eu/browse/product.do?cid=57125&vid=1&pid=891253&scid=891253007). (Even if it was a sweatshirt, not a hoodie. I couldn't find any sweatshirts on Gap's site, bizarrely.)

[conuly]

The uniform policy in NYC really is unenforceable. And they know it. They try to make it as easy to do so people will go along with it, but if you refuse to, they really can't do anything about it.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Uniforms are not for the benefit of children. They're for the convenience of adults.

While I agree that uniforms do make it convenient for the adults (it VERY clearly defines dress code and what is appropriate or inappropriate attire for kids, especially when parents don't/won't enforce it with their own kids), I do think uniforms benefits kids too. My daughter spent her first 2 years at a school wearing a uniform, and now we've moved and there is no uniform. My daughter is only 7 and she is very occupied (might even say distracted) by what she wears to school. I let her wear fancier clothes on Fridays as a compromise, but otherwise she'd be going through the dress section of her closet every day, and wearing little heel shoes or fancy-ish flats to school every day, even if it makes it so she can't do PE or play on the playground. It might not be distracting to other kids that she is wearing (or WANTS to wear) clothes like that, but I think it's distracting to her to be wearing that kind of clothes herself. As her mother, I make family rules about what the kids can or can't wear to school, and when, but I can see why the school would want to make rules for kids who don't dress appropriately. Maybe her teacher has a problem with my daughter dressing up on Fridays for all I know. So, I think it can benefit kids as well as adults. I would prefer to have my kids go to schools with uniforms if I could choose.

[conuly]

The rule for all schools here, uniform or no uniform, is sneakers only.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with that. I never had to wear a uniform, even at boarding school.

The real problem is that parents in some places are apparently willing to finance their childrens' fashion crazes to such a ridiculous event that school becomes all about what you're wearing, and the kids whose parents can't or won't pay for expensive, frivolous clothing get put down.

Having uniforms nips the Fashion Wars in the bud - to a certain extent - but it doesn't address the real problem, which is one of attitude, not fashion. When everyone is dressed the same, other reasons to bully and exclude people are found, so there really isn't much benefit to the students.