(This had to be Friday, when students could wear jeans sometimes provided they wore a school spirit t-shirt. Monday through Thursday were regular uniform days.)

Excerpt from a student paper from a few years in the past:

When I become principal of the school I would make some changes. The first thing I would change is the uniform because many of the students don’t like wearing uniforms. You may wonder why I would change uniform in the first part. Well I will change uniform first because no one wants to be in black and white or red and black or navy blue. Kids want to be cool and be famous like those famous people out there they want to be like Triple H, Akon, Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Lil Wayne. The second thing I would like to change is school hours because people are tired of the hours it’s too much work for them. I will like to make less hours of school for students.

More memories. My student went on to improve lunch, the last thing she believed needed changing. A delightful student, this girl had come from Africa and was pretty much on her own in the sense that her parents had almost no English so she conducted the practical matters of life for her family. She was picking up English quickly and had adapted to her new life. She had a beautiful smile.

P.S. Kids always seem to dislike their uniforms. One factor sometimes missed by outsiders: Uniforms are seldom worn in financially and academically-stronger areas, and then almost exclusively in private schools, with some exceptions such as financially stable, urban areas with gang activity. Students in the average middle-class school get to choose what they wear to school within sets of limits such as “no spaghetti straps” and no “vulgar t-shirts.” Uniforms themselves can make older children in financially-disadvantaged areas feel poor, even if part of the idea behind those uniforms may be to hide financial differences between families. My students used to go on field trips to museums and other venues, where students from other areas appeared in the latest fashions from the mall. They felt their uniforms set them apart.

The other big reason for instituting uniforms stems from gang activity. If everyone is wearing the same colors, students cannot use colors to represent their gangs.