Schools: Mandatory Uniforms for Students
There are currently many public school districts in California considering mandatory school uniforms. Lowell Joint School District in Whittier is one. They are doing this in hopes of battling gang presence on school grounds.
I applaud every effort on this behalf but fear this will have two immediate effects:
1) It may make gang members harder to identify to the uninitiated, but will not stop gang members from identifying one another. They will switch to (different) hairstyles, shoelace color, or markings on hands or bottoms of their shoes.
2. While making cookie cutter replicas out of our children, it will do nothing to stop the activity that is the source of so many disciplinary problems. Disguising a problem just makes it harder to see and harder to fix.
School board members, please do not fall prey to this ill-conceived, if well-intentioned, plan. Do not force conformity on young minds. Do not try to stifle self-expression on this grand scale. Don’t use regulations to restrict the right to make our own decisions.
As parents, we reserve the right to direct our children’s choices and guide them into learning how to make decisions.
PAULA MARTIN
Whittier
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