By ALICIA LEONARD
The Walton County School Board (WCSB) met for their second regularly scheduled meeting of the month on April 21, starting with a workshop at 4 p.m. and board meeting at 5 p.m. in the media center at South Walton High School.
The workshop was centered around a presentation prepared for discussion on possible acceptable school uniform choices should each school decide to adopt a uniform policy.
The idea of uniforms appears to be a deeply divided issue between parents as evidenced by the responses of many to a recent question posed by Herald/Breeze staff on its Facebook page.
Originally discussed by some schools as a “safety measure” the issue quickly grew as groups started to fund-raise with the “school color” shirts, and many different variations appeared on campuses.
Board members discussed the issue of conformity, and the difficulty of having conformity in clothing colors and designs without having to force parents to purchase the clothing from a pre-approved or single source vendor.
Board members expressed feeling uncomfortable limiting parents’ shopping choices to a vendor of the “district’s choice,” in order to “keep colors and designs the same,” but they also expressed concern over the ability at this time to purchase school shirts from local stores and how this could possibly affect safety as well.
The presentation outlined the possibility for schools that choose to participate in wearing uniforms, choices of three shirt colors, with the shirts being t-shirts or polo shirt designs, with a school emblem, and three choices of colors for pants, skirts, and jeans such as black, blue and khaki.
At this time, four schools in the district have a uniform policy, but many have multiple designs and shades, not leading to a very unified, uniform look.
Board Chair Gail Smith said as a prior teacher and principal, seeing students in the three colors helped to identify kids and quickly sort out any visitors to their campus, and helped to quickly identify students, especially on away trips from campus.
Board member Mark Davis said he felt the many variations already in use and proposed in the workshop only muddled the issue. “Either we go to absolute uniforms or do away with the dress code,” he said. Adding, he recently visited a school where a staff member was measuring a student’s skirt length with a ruler and he asked if this was really the best use of teachers’ and principals’ time spent with students.
Principals and staff members working in schools with a uniform code said the dress issues were cut down dramatically – from 300 clothing complaints to three for the school year – once uniforms were incorporated, saying the uniforms allowed teachers to teach rather than to police inappropriate student clothing.
The discussion closed in order for the board meeting to begin, without any resolutions or decisions by the board and may be revisited later in the year.
One of the opening items on the agenda for the board was a presentation from the Larry W. Cooper Educational Foundation to the district’s technology department for a $45,000 donation. Cooper, once a resident of the south Walton/Destin area, moved to the Mossy Head area many years back, and before passing away, worked with his business partner Bill Thompson to set up the technology grant for local students. Cooper’s widow still lives in the area and Thompson said it was very important to the Cooper family and himself that these types of local donations to help students continued from the foundation in Cooper’s memory. “This will not be the last check you see from us,” Thompson told the board.
Staff members dealing with recent student testing told the board this round of the Florida Standards Assessment Test (FSAT) had been severely troubled with multiple problems ongoing around the state, and there was a possibility of the district seeking a refund for services paid or/and a possible re-test or seeking a complete waiver for students this year until the issues are resolved.
In line with the testing discussion, District Superintendent Carlene Anderson made an emergency appeal to the board to waive some testing of students from in-house sources. The board unanimously approved to suspend end-of-course exams designed by the district, with some subjects already covered by state exams. Anderson told the board her request came from students being exhausted by the testing schedules as the school year starts to wrap up.
The next board meeting is scheduled for May 5 at 5 p.m., at the district’s board room in DeFuniak Springs.
Budget workshops will soon begin to be scheduled, although no dates have been set as of yet. To see more about meetings, workshops and school news, go to www.walton.k12.fl.us.
