By Dorothy Jarrett, principal, Summerour Middle School | Here at Summerour Middle School (SMS), our motto is “We are committed to creating a culture of excellence by working hard and being nice!” Every student can recite this and every teacher talks about what it really means with our students. We believe that our culture of excellence will ignite our success.
Jarrett
The decision to petition to Gwinnett County Public School’s district leaders to support a mandatory uniform policy at SMS was not my decision. My decision was to listen to the majority of my parents.
Four years ago after several years of researching the effects of school uniforms on academic achievement, it became clear to me that when “What you are wearing” is taken out of the education equation, academics go up and behavior issues go down.
The recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) article, September 6, 2015, portrayed school uniforms as an ethnicity/race disparity issue. The writers never mentioned that in predominantly white private school’s, uniforms are a part of the culture. Uniforms are an important part of who they are. Why are uniforms the norm in most private schools? I contend that one reason is that these private schools want students focusing on academics.
I really took exception to this AJC article because not once did they cite any research that said uniforms are bad for academic achievement. Not once did it mention that all the primarily white private schools require their students to wear uniforms.
I listened to my SMS parents and I’m glad I did. While we have had voluntary uniforms over the last two years, parents wanted me to make them mandatory so that all students were required to wear the uniforms. This eliminates any arguments from those who did not want to wear uniforms. Parents understand the advantages financially and they believe their students would be more focused on academics. They are right.
The school uniforms are strengthening our sense of community at SMS. We believe, and studies show, that students in uniform will hold more positive perceptions of belonging in their school community. Fostering a sense of belonging furthers the goal of our advisement program.
We believe that uniforms will instill in students a sense of pride in themselves, their school, and their community, especially as we assimilate into our new middle school building. School uniforms empower us to stay more focused on teaching and learning.
Uniforms are cost effective and save parents money on clothing for school. Our vendor has worked with us to provide packages to cover a weeks’ worth of clothing for only $99. In addition, for those families in financial binds, our church partners have provided free uniforms. Finally, we have also established payment plans for families.
Summerour Middle School is experiencing a time of exciting change and opportunity. Student achievement is on the rise, and morale has been ignited by our move into our new building. We believe our mandatory school uniform policy along with our culture of excellence in everything we do, will ignite our success. Stay tuned for the end of the year data!
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