Saturday, January 12, 2008

School Uniforms

I was very shocked to hear that an administrator I admire thinks that school uniforms are too expensive to initiate. I totally disagree with him! Let me tell him my story.
When I moved to Florida, I found out my son had to wear uniforms to school. His uniform is khaki or navy blue bottoms and then a red, white or navy blue PLAIN polo shirt. No logo of any sort is allowed on the shirt with only one exception- the school logo. It was cheaper for me to buy him a couple of polo shirts for about $5.50 at Walmart, two at Bealls with the school logo on it for $11 each and then a handfull of khaki or navy blue shorts for anywhere between $6-$12, depending on where I bought them. I often help buy my niece her clothes. Same deal on the shirts, bought her a few jumpers at $12 each and some skorts for the same price. On Fridays they can wear a school tshirt. During the brief cold snap, they either wear a long sleeve tshirt under their polo shirt or a long-sleeve polo shirt. No jackets are worn through out the day. If they are cold natured, then they can wear a plain or school logo sweatshirt, zippered or regular style. No logo means no alligators, horses or any emblem embroidered on it. And what's really nice is I only had to replace 1 pair of pants, 1 shorts and buy two new white shirts that he destroyed with pizza last year.
So anyway, last year Joey thought he looked a bit silly the first day of school. He was use to wearing what he wanted to wear to school. Then he gets there and EVERYONE is wearing a uniform. He was very excited after that and liked the idea of everyone wearing the SAME thing. Then they had a Rodeo Round Up Reading day and everyone was able to dress like a cowboy/cowgirl. Joey didn't want to, he was afraid he'd get in trouble. He went and was excited about the whole dress up day, but was ready to wear his uniform the next day he went back to school. (That's also the day he had a seizure- which alerted us to the sleep seizures he had been having).
You can purchase school uniforms at Wal-Mart, Lands' End, Targets, and places like Sears or JC Penneys. So here's my challenge. I want teachers who really think that uniforms are too expensive to compare buying 5 outfits for a school that enforces school uniforms and 5 more outfits for a school without uniforms. Keep a spreadsheet to track the cost of each outfit. And if you have a store like Bealls , well they give a small percentage back each year to the schools on the uniform sales. (That's where I get Joey's logo shirts.)

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