OMS students may don uniforms
By Jennifer Colton - Argus Observer
Friday, April 20, 2007 1:02 PM PDT
Ontario - Students at Ontario Middle School could be wearing uniforms as soon as this fall if the members of the Ontario Middle School Uniform Committee can meet their mission guidelines.
Pam Wettstein, who is spearheading the committee, presented a request to institute an OMS student uniform policy at the regular Ontario School Board of Directors meeting Thursday at the district office in Ontario.
“I’ve had very little negative input at all,” she said. “Especially people whose children have graduated in the past.”
Students from the Ontario Middle School Safety Committee attended both the school potato feed and the meeting to model the sample uniforms — some form of khaki pants, belt and polo shirts in maroon or white — with tags labeling the price and where the clothing had been purchased, including Wal-Mart and Old Navy.
“A lot of them (students) already had clothes they already own that would qualify under the policy,” Wettstein said.
The uniform committee is modeling its proposal on a policy utilized by Boise’s South Junior High School.
The committee met with South Junior High School Principal Kathleen McCurdy and toured the facility, interviewing students and school staff about their experiences with uniforms.
“There is no conclusive long-term study that can say if it (uniforms) works for or against the school,” Wettstein said. “At South Junior High, 70 percent of parents supported the adoption of school uniforms (before implementation). Then they did another survey four months into it and 97 percent of the parents supported it.”
The OMS committee conducted two surveys to gauge interest in the policy, one to a cross-section of OMS students and one to OMS teachers and administrators. On the teacher and administrator survey, 100 percent asked that the school board consider implementing mandatory student uniforms, and on the student survey, which polled around 175 students, 64 percent said they were in favor and 36 percent were against a student uniform policy.
Parent and law enforcement surveys are underway, Wettstein said.
“If we get a good parent survey, we will take the time to do that,” he said. “We’re looking for 70 percent support from parents.”
Wettstein pioneered the uniform committee after she was approached by area teachers, she said.
“I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of teachers one-on-one,” she said. “They begged me to do it. If 100 percent of teachers ask for something, I think it should be done.”
The school board asked for a second presentation once the committee can evaluate the completed parent surveys.
“A policy is just a policy,” boardmember Cliff Bentz said. “We could have it for a while and then change.”
Wettstein said the group is asking for a two-year trial of the uniform policy.
South Junior High also receives grants and offers scholarships for students to purchase uniforms, including a sponsor program where people in the community sponsor a specific child and buy that child’s uniform for the year, Wettstein said.
“If we find out we do have the support of the parents and board, that would be our next step.”
McCurdy will offer a public presentation at 7 p.m. May 10, tentatively at OMS, Wettstein said. The meeting will consist of McCurdy’s presentation and a short question-and-answer session.
Also during the meeting, representatives from May Roberts gave a school report about reading proficiency data from the school’s fall and winter testing, and Duke Clinton offered a maintenance and operations report outlining different projects the departments are working on.
In other business, the board approved: the 2007 to 2008 calendar — with the date for graduation undetermined pending further investigation — the migrant contract agreement for the Annex school, the superintendent’s contract, the technology agreement with the city of Ontario and a nomination to the budget board.
