In my charter school there will be uniforms. These uniforms will be polos and khakis. These khakis will be knee length skirts, shorts, or actual pants. There will be an expectation that these will be buttoned at least once and three times if they want.
Parents, if you have kids in school you should be looking for a school with a uniform or a drastic dress code policy. Students should cover everything from their knees to their neck and covering their entire shoulders. I have students in my class daily with buttocks and bellies showing. I have boys wearing muscle shirts. I have kids with holes in their jean that would be covered by bathing suits. I have girls in spaghetti straps that show off more cleavage than I think is appropriate for Walmart. Now of course, there are crazy people everywhere that think Walmart is a perfect place to wear anything. Fine, but that is NOT school. School should be a place where students and their parents work to succeed and achieve. School success should be earned not given. Student success should be based on struggle not ease.
Parents, if your school ends the dress code as did the Round Rock ISD school board you should vote them out. If your school district was dumb enough to follow the pattern of other schools like RRISD did by following the no dress code policy of Austin ISD which scores lower than them on State Standardized Tests then vote them out because they are idiots.
Let's say you're on the best team in a professional sport league. Maybe you're on the top five. Does it make sense to follow the failed policy of the worst team. Round Rock ISD and Leander ISD are performing better in every measurable way than Austin ISD and yet the district school boards of both ISDs have decided to mirror AISD's failed policy. That is lunacy.
Parents, whatever the school, charter or private, that you have the ability to get your child into; get them into it, if and only if, the student has a severe dress code or they have a uniform.
This comes from a teacher. The student needs to see school as different than the park/mall/house. The student needs to have expectations on them at school. If they come in pajamas they are not ready to work. If they are not fully clothed then they are not fully prepared to learn. If they are dressed halfway, they will only go halfway in life.
There may have been a time when this wasn't the case. There may have been a time when societal norms or fear of social ostracization would encourage a family to send students to school achieving a certain level of dress. Now that is not the case. We used to complain about busy-bodies. We used to disdain ubiquitous haughtiness. For certain, sometimes bad actors would turn their cannons of social demerits at someone who may not have deserved it, but now there are no social demerits. And just like that, very few students and families have merit.
*I am at Title ONE school. My students have terrible behavior. None of this may apply to you even at a public school with no dress code, but that may have a socioeconomic cause. But it may be that it will apply to you if your student is in Elementary school. When they're older it might. My hypothesis is that with fewer expectations on behavior students have less good behavior and thus, less success in the classroom. A few years ago it was 20% now it's 60% of my students are performing sub standard. There is no consistent standard and so their performance suffers. Students designed to engage and test boundaries, are finding out their are no boundaries. This is bad for society and bad for these students. They must feel restricted to feel safe. Uniforms would help, can help. The solutions must be stricter not more lax.
No comments:
Post a Comment