D118keepcurrentstandardofdress

As a concerned community member, tax payer, and a parent to 3 young children within Danville’s District #118, I am writing this petition to sho the school board how many people disapprove of their decision to enforce a dress code for the 2014-1015 school year.

Petition Background (Preamble):

Uniforms in a public school are unnecessary. It is assumed by the school board that regular clothes cause fights, kids getting picked on, gangs, etc. Reality is that will not change with a uniform. There are still fights, people getting picked on because they wear clothes with holes/stains on them or clothes that are less-expensive than others, and kids are going to continue to pick on others until the adults step in and handle the situation properly.

All uniforms are doing is costing people extra money. People have hard enough times buying regular clothes to go out in or go to church in. They don't want to waste their hard earned money on boring solid colors. I believe this is a free country and we all should be able to wear what we want. We are living in a recession. Do they really think we can afford 3 or 4 different kinds of clothing?

The 'equity' argument goes like this: If children wear uniforms, they do not notice differences between children from rich and from poor families and can focus more on their studies or that they are teaching the children how to conform to a “real-life” job.

School uniforms may make all students look alike, but why do the teachers not wear the same uniforms? The teacher is allowed to dress casually, while the student has to an outfit that makes them look more like residents at the DOC. Houses close to private schools are often substantially more expensive than similar houses close to state schools. On the street, children are identified by their uniform. "Oh, you come from that poor school, you dummy!" is an example of what children say to each other when they look at each other's uniform. And even in the classroom, uniforms only accentuate differences in length, hair color and other physical characteristics. Children then consequently judge each other by their physical appearances. One can argue whether it were better if children judged each other by their clothes instead. Not all well-paid “real-life” jobs require you to wear a uniform.

Taking away children's right to choose what to wear does not make life any easier, it just makes children accustomed to conformity, to following orders and walking in line without thinking, without making a choice. This creates a huge amount of psychological problems later in life, it reduces the opportunity to get good work, it reduces the overall quality of life, in some respects it is a form of child abuse to systematically deny children choice.

I believe that the district needs to put their current focus onto the less than 10% of students that are not following the rules and not punish the other 90% of students that are following the rules. If the administrators put as much energy and heart into my child’s education and enforcing the current rules that they have, rather than worrying so much on what t-shirt my child wore to school, we could possibly have a Blue Ribbon school within District #118. So tell me, what’s more important to you and your child’s education?

Help us direct District #118’s focus back to where it needs to be – in the classroom!

A concerned parent    Contact the author of the petition