The Debate Continues Over School Uniforms in Calcasieu Parish

I remember when I graduated in 2001 and heard the next school year would be the year uniforms would become mandatory. I was so excited to escape that rule by the skin of my teeth. Sure enough, the beginning of the 01-02 school year began the school uniform policy in Calcasieu Parish. With its run for more than 20 years, high school students have had uniforms their whole school career at this point.

The uniform policy was removed after the hurricanes by the Calcasieu Parish School Board in order to help those students who might not have been able to replace their ruined uniforms. A few weeks ago, the board met and voted to reinstate the policy for the 21-22 school year. The vote caused an uproar of parents speaking their minds about being against the policy being reinstated.

Posts on the CPSB page after the announcement were mixed, with some being for the policy and a lot being against it. The uniform policy was put in place for a list of reasons, some of those being to avoid bullying of the types of clothing students could and couldn't afford. Parents were stressing because they not only had to buy normal clothes for the students, but also uniforms that would be outgrown almost each year as the student grew.

One parent has decided to speak up and try and do something about keeping school uniforms out of school. Doing a bit of googling, it seems as though there are actually two petitions currently out to be signed against uniforms in public schools. There is one on Care2Petitions with over 1,900 signatures. It was started very recently by a parent. The other is at Change.org. It seems to have been started six months ago, but active signers have been visiting it recently. Currently, the Change.org petition is almost at 5,000 signatures.