No Uniforms For Carpenter

A committee looking into the possibility of school uniforms for Carpenter Community Charter School decided—for now—against uniforms. 

Of the 322 parents who responded to a survey, 100 reported they “opposed” to “strongly opposed” a uniform policy, and 94 “supported” or “strongly supported” school uniforms, according to Mary Fortuna Kuser, who gave a report to the Carpenter Governance Council on Thursday afternoon.

“We have concluded that this is a divisive issue for this community,” Kuser said. “We recommend that Carpenter does not adopt a uniform policy at this time.”

Carpenter, like all public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, has a dress code, but the survey showed the committee that they could do better in educating parents about it.

Some parents said they thought that some young women dressed inappropriately for their age.

According to teacher Myron Breitstein, “The biggest issue in the upper grades is spaghetti straps.”

And another teacher, Nazzi Kaufman said that improper tops and shoes are the biggest problems in dress code violations. Every classroom will now have rules and procedures posted for the teachers and the students.

The committee looked at other schools with uniforms, found the costs of various uniforms and talked to people for and against the issue. A majority of the parents who have had uniforms in their schooling were for uniforms for their children. 

Most of the 44 staff and faculty thought that a uniform dress code would be less disruptive in the classrooms. The teachers said 68 percent of them have had some clothing-related distraction in their class. And, 46.5 percent of them said they strongly supported a dress code.

The Governance Council agreed to review and update the text and review the dress code annually.

Parent Michellene DeBonis said, “This is a parent’s issue. The notices may get overlooked by parents, but most of the kids know the rules.”

Nearly 75 percent of the parents said there could be some improvement of getting the word out about the present dress code. That is what the committee plans to do.