School Uniforms Proposal Discussed at Board Meeting

proposed by parents for the Lincoln-Hubbard school was one of the heavily discussed topics at last night’s board of education meeting.

Board President Michelle Stevenson addressed the issue in her opening remarks to the public. “I would like to clarify some misinformation regarding the school uniform discussion," she said, "This discussion did no originate with the board.” 

“The reason we are having the discussion tonight is that it’s necessary for the public to have the opportunity to have a voice, but the board has not even talked about this issue as a full board," said Stevenson. "In order for us to even move forward, that discussion has to happen among my colleagues and I, and then we have to determine if this is something we need to pursue. Tonight is the first opportunity that we’ll have."

Many on the school board questioned the timing of the discussion, saying there were more pressing issues to deal with. The idea of uniforms first came to the attention of Stevenson when a parent at one of last year’s district planning discussions brought it up. Most recently, the PTO of Lincoln-Hubbard School decided to support an initial survey with parents. 

PTO President Kristen Pierotti was on hand to explain the origin of the school uniform proposal during the meeting's public comment period. 

"A parent came to me after vetting among some neighbors, asking if they would be interested in a uniform policy, with some information as to what the pros and cons were," Pierotti said. "Everyone was giving him some positive feedback, so he came to me."

Pierotti, a mother of four public school students, said she brought the issue to her colleagues on the Lincoln-Hubbard board, expecting it to get a thumbs-down. But the response was positive. “It surprised me," she explained. "So, I went back to the parent. I went back to the board. I spoke with [Principal Matt Carlin] and said ‘what do we do with this?' "

Members of the L-H PTO created an online survey and sent it out to parents on Jan. 8. All 256 parents at Lincoln-Hubbard received a survey and 135 responded. The majority was in favor of a uniform policy.

Pierotti said that 75 percent to 82 percent were pro uniform, with 20 percent to 25 percent against the idea. "Maybe we shouldn’t be poo-pooing it,” she said about any thoughts of dismissing the dress code policy concern. 

Several board members questioned whether it was worth dedicating time to the issue with more pressing concerns.

"My biggest problem is does this bubble up to the top of all the issues we have to deal with?" asked board member Gloria Ron-Fornes. 

Board member Katherine Kalin asked how the concern of a single parent became an agenda item for the entire board to look at in the first place, “In a world where there are a million and one pressing issues,” she said.

The issue was brought up to the board president during forecasting meetings with parents late last year, explained Stevenson, “A parent came and said something to me, I approached Dr. Parker,” she said. “The initial recommendation that I made to Dr. Parker is let’s see if there’s interest.”

The initial interest signaled by the Lincoln-Hubbard PTO survey, which the board had paper copies of, was enough to warrant serious attention, for some.

“To me it sounds like the community kind of went behind this group of people who wanted the uniforms," said Vice President George Lucaci, "It got more viral, it captured the imagination of the community, because of one person." Lucaci pointed out that the without interest from the community the issue would have fallen by the wayside.

Pierotti supports a further exploration of the proposal, but said she didn't want the board to get caught up in the rancor. The idea to pilot the program at Lincoln-Hubbard was to avoid taking up the board's time with the matter. However, board rules stipulate that initiatives at one school need to be looked at in the context of the entire school system. 

"To me the critical issue is whether it’s a correlation to academic performance and also social problems and behavior of the students," said Lucaci. But, it was too early to tell, "We need a little bit more than just a survey at this point. We need a lot more research done by the PTOs, from the community, to us,” he said.

Mary Jo Defonzo, a 1981 graduate of didn't see any point in looking into the matter. “I do not want to have to shell out I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars to purchase a school uniform when [my daughter has] two years left in her high school education.”

DeFonzo, the mother of a current high school student said having a uniform isn't going to make a lot of difference.

High school sophomore Alex Arias stood up to tell the board how she felt about the matter. Arias, a reporter for the high school paper, was sent to the meeting to cover the reaction to the dress code policy proposal. "For the girl’s it’s kind of competitive," she said. "It might downsize all of that competitiveness between us girls. If you guys do consider that, it could maybe fix this a little bit between us girls."

Steven Levy, who supports moving school uniform talks forward, said the initiative started organically. "Initially it started to gauge interest, if the interest was not there then this idea would have died," he said. "I do think it’s fairly representative of the Lincoln-Hubbard community."

One school official later joked that there hasn't been this much of an uproar about a school policy since the board voted to stop serving French fries at lunch. Still, board members said there was still more information necessary to see if a school uniforms initiative was worth pursuing.  “We have to find some way to get other feedback, in my opinion," said board member Celia Colbert.

Board member Ed Makouvas agreed more background was needed. The board member but said the public meeting was the right place to raise the issue with parents.

Ed Makouvas said it was okay for the topic to come up in a public meeting, but that the board needed to do more background work on the matter. 

“If it gets a lot of momentum I think we still have to be honest with people and say that it will enter the queue with the other things that we have to deal with, and it will be prioritized," Makouvas said.

The school uniform survey sent to Lincoln-Hubbard parents is due today. More information is available on the Lincoln-Hubbard PTO website.