First, I have to talk about uniforms. The school is pretty adamant about uniforms, which consist of khaki pants and a shirt which MUST have the school's logo on it. Well, since charter schools generally--and certainly this one--serve low-income communities and struggle to engage parents, the uniform issue has been contentious, with parents neglecting to get the shirts embroidered with the logo. As we entered the 2nd week of school, students were sent home if they weren't in full uniform. So first graders who showed up impeccably dressed, very neat, are brought to the office and have to wait there until a parent either brings an appropriately embroidered shirt or takes them home. Students lose out on really valuable instructional time because of parental neglect AND, in my opinion, because of lousy school policy.
I understand the argument in favor of being strict about uniforms, and to some extent I agree with it; I'm in favor of being strict in this regard, but not to the point of pulling her out of class and forcing her to miss an entire day of school. One boy in kindergarten missed three days in a row because the embroiders were slow to finish his shirts. My concern here is twofold: on one hand, irresponsible parents are nothing new for this school and for others like it, but in addition, kids are being punished for something they have no control over.
It's a truism in education that parents have a lot of impact, especially in high poverty populations where parent involvement is most important. Many kids at this school are negatively impacted by the behavior of their parents or guardians, and as a school, we cant do much about that. Home life is outside of our purview, end of story. Public schools must provide a safe haven, a respite from what is often an extremely difficult home life.
Rigorous academics are also important. The kids in this school, even the 5-year-olds, work hard. Missing a couple days is a big deal, and they do fall behind in as little as a day out of school, let alone three straight. When a kid wants to come to school, I'm of the mind that they have to be allowed to come unless they're carrying a contagious disease or for some other reason a threat to others. Because the kids need to learn, they need to be there, or else we as school professionals are wasting our time.
Keeping kids who don't have the full uniform out of school is purely punitive. Discipline is important, but kids cant be held responsible for their parents' behavior any more than they already are. Our students' future is largely determined by their circumstances before they ever get to school. When they enter our school, the goal is that they can transcend whatever limitations they were born with--lousy parents included. When kids are punished for things they have nothing to do with, it sends a terrible message first off, and secondly, it has the effect of reinforcing the idea for kids that they aren't fully responsible for their own success (which of course as elementary schoolers they aren't, but nonetheless its an important idea).
A lot of charter schools are very serious about uniforms and such, and I really do understand why. But for professionals at our school to waste time with things like removing nail polish, calling parents about clothes and writing letters about embroidery is just silly. It's not only silly, it has a deleterious effect on student learning and overall school culture. When a school decides that a kid cant come until he wears the right shirt, the school is deciding for that kid "you won't learn anything today." That's the opposite message we ought to be giving to these kids.
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