Strollerderby

I'm not a parent of a middle schooler yet (that's some 11 years away thank god) but I would have LOVED to have had uniforms in middle school.  High school, not so much, but middle school?  Yeah.  I could have done without having to compete with Guess and Bennetton and Coca-Cola sweatshirts and all that other neon horseshit from the 80's.  Shopping at KMart was embarrassing enough - having to broadcast that fact by actually wearing the Kmart clothes was 20 times more so.

Ack.  Even 20 years on middle school still pisses me off.

But this girl (and her family) can go take a flying leap.  The wrong message is being sent here.  This girl is going to try to get away with everything she can for the rest of her life if she gets away with this, and that's probably not for the best.

My kid is only in preschool but he has a similar dress requirement for school - solid colors only. No logos, no screen printing, no patterns. The reasoning is that such things will cause a distractment.

Now I can understand the school's problem with screen printing. The less my son knows about Spounge Bob, the better, and I can see how kids might be more interested in a forbidden cartoon character than Spanish lessons.

But I can't figure out what is so distracting about a striped t-shirt or a plaid skirt!

I really don't have a problem with uniforms. They definetly simplify things. But as long as the kids are wearing their own clothes, it seems so silly to not allow things like striped t-shirts.

At first glance, I was going to agree that this is way over the top. I assumed it was a private school, and that the parents and children had signed up for it with full knowledge of the rules - so, pull the kid out and go elsewhere if you don't like it! But this is a public school - so these rules seem very excessive to me. I think we have to be careful about protecting our children's right to freedom of speech and expression - yes, even in the schools. I'm curious if others disagree with the 1969 Supreme Court ruling, or if they feel it doesn't apply in this instance? Interesting topic.

At first glance, I was going to agree that this is way over the top. I assumed it was a private school, and that the parents and children had signed up for it with full knowledge of the rules - so, pull the kid out and go elsewhere if you don't like it! But this is a public school - so these rules seem very excessive to me. I think we have to be careful about protecting our children's right to freedom of speech and expression - yes, even in the schools. I'm curious if others disagree with the 1969 Supreme Court ruling, or if they feel it doesn't apply in this instance? Interesting topic.

Public school or not, it's the rule. It's not being applied only to this child, its applied to all children. Personally, I think uniforms are an atrocious idea, they take individuality away from children...but...

When children are low income and are subjected to ridicule by their peers because of how they dress, ridicule that adults often do nothing to stop, dress codes are one solution.  They don't stop all the teasing, but they can take some of the forms out of the mix.

Bottom line, you would think the ACLU would have better things to spend their limited resources on than pimping media time for a spoiled middle class kid who wants to wear pink socks instead of navy blue ones.  

As a teacher in a public school that requires uniforms I am of two minds about it.  On the one hand, we are spending way too much time "catching" kids out of uniform and sending them to the office to call parents.  If parents don't come with clothes, they sit and wait and miss out on school.  It tics me off.

However, uniforms definitly make it easier to tell if a student belongs on our campus or not.  We don't regulate socks, shoes, or backpacks.  We only concern ourselves with shirts and bottoms.  Even then, the kids try to get away with things like wearing two different colored solid shirts with one sticking out below the other.

Now to the article, this kid is learning to break the law.  She is practicing not following rules and will be amazed someday when she gets a speeding ticket or is arrested for something because the rules don't apply to her.  Her parents are feeding into this future problem.  There is being allowed to express yourself through external motions and then there is learning to express yourself through language and learning.  That is what school is all about.  It is about respecting the world and getting along with the rules of the situation.

Those parents are idiots and they're only hurting their daughter.

The ACLU must be bored out of their minds.

I've been a card-carrying member of the ACLU since high school, but I'm torn on the dress code question.  I'm all for kids wearing expressive clothing, but I also see the point about the possibility of disruption.

I also wonder why the dress-as-free-speech issue seems to be confined to schools -- there are other public places and facilities where certain kinds of dress will get you kicked out.  (I know someone who was ordered to leave a courtroom for wearing shorts, for example.)  I'm really up in the air on this one.

I'm all for uniforms for school children, they may as well get used to it now. Any job from McD's to corporate law has a dress code of some type.  My daughter wears a uniform, and after to talking to parents whose kids don't I appreciate

NOT having arguments every morning over what is appropriate for school.

As someone who wore a uniform from nursery through 12th grade,  I can assure you that uniforms can be worn in a way to show status, and financial background.  It mattered if you wore your socks up or down, how you tucked your shirt, how short your kilt was, if you wore a kilt pin, the type of boxer shorts (it was the 80's) you wore under your kilt,  the shoes you wore and the list goes on.

Kids can be tenacious little buggers and will find ways to make fun of other students for dress.  I don't believe for second that uniforms make that magically go away.

Maybe teaching kids how not to be judgey mcjudgersons would be better.    

Anyone who thinks that uniforms "level the playing field", is kidding themselves.  Not to totally reiterate what has already been said, but kids (uh, actually the PARENTS, usually) will find a way to ensure that you know exactly how much money they (meaning, their parents) have- name brand purses, designer shoes, jewelry... All of these things stand out a million times more when everyone is dressed in uniform.  And, I might add, these luxury goods actually cost a whole lot more than most clothing, and show even more pointedly whose mom buys their shoes at Payless or Wal Mart and who buys them from whichever current designer is the most popular.  

Also, from what I understand, the parents are suing mostly due to the treatment of their child as a rule breaker.  They do not feel that the punishment fits the crime.  Also, regardless of the impetus for the lawsuit, they are not suing to have their daughter be allowed to break the rules, but rather to have the rules changed.  And that, my friends, is what makes this (sometimes f-ed up) country we live in so brilliant.  If you don't like the rules, work to change them!  

I applaud this family's efforts to ensure that the rules that are made, are made within the confines of our rights as citizens.  

Ultimately, if the school's rules DO fall appropriately under our nation's laws, then the court will uphold them.  If not, then I'm really glad that someone took the effort/time (not to mention all the bad publicity from people who disagree) in order to bring constitutional violations to the forefront.  

Yay for the Scott Family! (and for the ACLU, for once again, being brave enough to stand up for even the smallest of "victims")

Word to KM.

I'm so sick of these holier-than-though, hippy, Waldorf people who hate Disney.

Get a life and let everyone else live theirs.

Preparing a lawsuit is a legitimate means of petioning the judicial branch of government to step in and assess a situation to determine whether or not a given program is (choose the appropriate descriptor: legal|constitutional|etc.).  Since the school board is so set in their ways and has recently reviewed the program, it is clear that avenue of working within the school system to change the program has already been explored.  This is the next logical step.

I only hope that the parents and ACLU are allowing the children to actively see the work that goes into preparing the lawsuit and using it as the best gosh darn civics/legal education experiance imaginable.  As opposed to the alternitive of "don't worry, mommy and daddy will have this taken care of for you and you'll get to wear whatever you want."

Personally, I'm opposed to uniforms.  I would support a small set of restrictions that say don't wear these X gang symbols or Y items of revealing clothing.  As the commenters said above - no matter what, there's always a way to tell whose who ... and any one whose seen Brit's early videos knows what can be done to make uniforms more revealing than originally intended.