School Uniforms

In recent years, school districts around the country have adopted school uniform policies, as a way to promote safety in discipline in schools. Hillsborough County is one of them. More than half of the Middle and Elementary schools in Hillsborough have gone to school uniform policies.

In Assignment: Education.. Bill Ratliff takes you to one the 85 Hillsborough County schools where "Uniformity" is having an impact.

--[Teacher Shahala Salam says:] ".. the more of the river that got into the canyon the more it eroded it away."-

This is first-year teacher Shahala Salam. She's teaching seventh grade science at Walker Middle School. Not an easy job. Some will tell you.. there's a special place in heaven for Middle School teachers.. because it takes both talent and patience to reach this age group. But Salam says it hasn't been hard at Walker.. one reason for that she says is the school's uniform policy.

--[Salam says:] "As far as discipline goes, it just seems to me that the kids.. they all look the same. They are all wearing the same uniform. No one makes fun of anybody else, as far as uniforms go.. and crowd control and everybody's doing the same thing."--

The U-S Department of Education says many schools that have school uniforms policies have found they promote school safety, improve discipline and enhance the learning environment. Walker Middle School may be a good case in point. Designed to hold one-thousand students.. it has more than 16-hundred.. an overcrowding situation that could be a recipe for trouble. But it hasn't been. Principal Gwendolyn Luney is convinced Walker's uniform policy is a major reason.

--[Principal Gwendolyn Luney says:] "Last year, we had students come to us from I'll say at least 18 different schools.. private as well as public. Uh, we had to have something that was going to pull those students together to really make them bond, and the uniform did that."--

The students also say there is another advantage.. you don't have worry what you're going to wear to school and that everyone fits in.

--[Bill Ratliff asks off camera:] "You all feel like you belong to one school because you're wearing uniforms?" [Students say in unison:] "Yes."[Ratliff says:] That's kind of neat isn't?" [students nod yes.]--

The uniform policies at Hillsborough's schools are optional, but at Walker Middle school only 80 of the more than 16-hundred students have chosen -not- to wear the uniforms... which are made up of green and maroon shirts and khaki bottoms.

This article was brought to you
straight from the desk of

in the Newsroom of