Does School Discipline Over Uniform Infractions Go too Far?

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/does-school-discipline-over-uniform-infractions-go-too-far-1372000263
Despite the intention of the punishment to dissuade students from breaking uniform rules, it can sometimes have the opposite effect.

“Some students wear clothes violating school uniform [rules] on purpose, just to get out of class,” said Emma Salazar, a junior at Wilson. “Uniforms are important, but there are many ways to deal with students that wouldn’t affect their learning time.”

Some community advocates agree that taking students out of class for school uniform infractions may prove to be counter-productive in certain instances.

“There needs to be a more positive way for student discipline than pulling the student out of their classes and harming their class time,” said Justine Calma, program coordinator at Khmer Girls in Action, a local non-profit whose mission is to empower Southeast Asian girls and young women.

Less obvious, however, is what exactly can be done to create an alternative for enforcing the uniform code, that won’t result in students missing class time.

Everybody has different opinions about school uniforms, but there is clearly a need for districts that have uniform codes to revisit the issue, with students and parents, of how violations are dealt with.

“I personally like uniforms– they’re unique and they usually save money for students,” said Jazmine Gonzalez, a sophomore at Wilson High. “But restricting uniforms and dress codes [in a way] that affects the student’s learning time -- that I’m against.”

[mbperrin]

1. It's the same with any issue - reward vs cost.

What benefits arise from uniforms? What's the actual cost of one missed class period? Or can offenders be sent to another class, like in-school suspension, where they miss no instruction, but they're not with their usual classmates?

I can tell you this - if there are no consequences for violation of rules, there will be no compliance with those rules.


Had an example of this earlier this year - brand new assistant principal (they're discipline in our school) who taught elementary for 3 years before becoming a high school AP. Student with a bad temper begins in August to regularly cuss and threaten teachers and classmates over items like being late to class, exploding with anger, shouting, screaming, walking out. This will continue all school year and escalate of course, into actually throwing desks, threatening death, hitting another student with an economics text in the head, using the phone to cheat on exams, and in general, creating fear and dread in all classes enrolled.

The AP "talked" to this student all year, never once suspending, assigning in school suspension, getting to a counselor, writing a ticket for truancy, requiring a parent meeting, nothing at all, just talking, because, he said, to all the teachers involved, he believed that behavior was improving and would improve more.

This senior student ends up failing every class and not graduating this spring. This outcome is on the AP's head - at no point did he insist that she act like all other students, complete her work, or even stay in class. She is not special ed, nor 504, nor a poverty student. She simply ran as far as authority would allow her. In her case, she'll have a 5th senior year, if she returns. This is what failing to enforce rules can do.

So are uniforms of value or not? I don't know - I have no experience with them. If none, chuck them. If so, enforcement will have to be done, keeping in mind that parents will also their kids out of school to babysit for little brother and sister so mom and dad can have an anniversary day to themselves, or for a dental appointment, or to travel to a league soccer tournament, so a single day missed is probably not a disaster.

[knitter4democracy]

2. Suspension over uniforms is crazy.

At the Catholic schools I taught in, we had misconducts for uniform and minor infractions. Three added up to an after school detention. They could skip that and go straight to detention for bigger infractions of the code, but for small stuff like uniforms, there's no reason to have a kid out of class. Hand him or her a misconduct, and move on.

[duffyduff]

3. It's a myth school uniforms save money

Parents have to buy TWO sets of clothes for their children, one for school, one for all other times.

School uniforms in public schools should not be allowed anyway because students have the right to free expression as long as the clothing is safe and doesn't distract from the learning environment.

The ONLY reason there has been this push for school uniforms in public schools is because dipshit administrators LOVE them. They don't have to do as much work of enforcing dress codes like they did before.

[eridani]

5. That depends--my parents cut back a lot on other clothing expenditures to pay for uniforms

I rather liked the uniforms, because I hated to spend time deciding what to wear. In any case, they couldn't afford the cool stuff, and I was spared harassment at school with the uniform.

There were no punishments for infractions, as there was only one real infraction--girls rolling up the waists of the skirts to make them shorter. The solution was that one of the nuns would order her to unroll the waist.

[duffyduff]

7. You are talking private schools, where they can impose uniforms

Public schools are a completely different thing.

[eridani]

8. It's the same policy regardless, right?

If public school parents object to uniforms, they can kick out the school board members who approved them.

[Igel]

4. So kids are violating the uniform rules to get out of class?

That says right there that they'd rather be in trouble than be in class. We can argue over learning time, but the kids are going to avoid learning.

Let's say that they can't get out of class through uniform infractions. They still want out of class. And they're still willing to get into trouble to get out of class.

What other rule do we decide isn't important enough to take kids out of class for?

Or do we decide that for that one student the uniform rule isn't quite "uniform." Fair? No. Got resentment? Or the rule vanishes--and if one rule is meaningless, then others probably are. That's always fun, breakdowns in class managements, esp. with 30 low-SES students.

Write up the students, keep them in class, give them ASD until they forget that the school day ends and 2:25 and start to think it always ended at 4:00. Call their parents until their parents are convinced that their cell phone is actually a dedicated connection with the kid's teachers always on the other end. .

[FBaggins]

6. Yep. Put more simply...

... "your idea of punishment is their idea of reward".

One or both sides of that equation need to change.