MiddletownJournal.com

TRENTON — TRENTON — Edgewood City Schools has sent out a random survey to gauge the opinions of some district parents about adopting a uniform policy.

The 1,300 surveys were e-mailed June 8 to see how much support there would be for a Cougar uniform policy, said John Thomas, director of community relations for Edgewood Schools.

Thomas said the board will discuss the survey during its meeting at 6 p.m. Monday in the district's high school auditorium.

Some of the five questions in the survey ask parents what grade their child is in and what the district's dress policy should be, whether there should be a required dress uniform or a voluntary one, and whether the current code is acceptable or should be made stricter.

The survey also asks parents if they would support a uniform policy that required quality but less expensive clothing and that was applied fairly and consistently.

In addition, the survey has a comment area to provide additional feedback to the district.

Thomas said the topic came up after some parents expressed an interest in a uniform policy.

"There's a lot of positive data out there — some not positive — in reference to the uniform in a school environment," he said. There are safety and financial reasons to adopt a policy as well as academic reasons.

"So I think, from our standpoint, we need to see what our community thinks about whether we should take a look at something like this," he said. "We're just getting some

general feedback. Then ... a decision will be made as to whether we go forth with some form of uniform, have a revised dress code ... or stay status quo."

Thomas said that, to his knowledge, there has never been a uniform policy in the district, though the subject was discussed a couple of years ago. "The data that we got didn't warrant changing where we were at that point in time," he said.

However, in response to growing levels of school violence nationwide, district officials said many schools have come to see uniforms as a positive and creative way to reduce discipline problems and increase school safety.

For example, in neighboring Stephen Vail Middle

School in the Middletown School City District, a uniform policy was adopted seven years ago for students in grades six through eight after a parent-driven initiative. Michael Valenti, the principal at Vail for the past two years, said there are a lot of positives about a uniform policy.

"It's a quick way to identify that they're one of our students or it's a quick way to identify that they're not one of our students," Valenti said.

Also, he said, a uniform policy "reduces pressure, especially at the middle school level, on what you have to wear and what you're suppose to look like, and because of that, I think it improves our learning environment."

Valenti said he also thinks uniforms improve students' confidence.

"If I come from a home that, for whatever reason, may not materially have as much as someone else, when I come to our building wearing a uniform, we look the same," he said.

However, a study on school uniforms covering the years 1994 through 2002 in urban high schools conducted by Dr. Virginia Bendel Draa of the School of Graduate Studies and Research from Youngstown State University resulted in mixed reviews on how uniforms benefit school districts.

Draa's study concluded that a pattern emerged that indicated improvement in rates of attendance, graduation and suspension, but no improvement in academic proficiency or expulsion rates in schools with uniform policies.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2595 or dewilson@coxohio.com.