Uniforms (mostly) go over big with students

Survey - Children polled at Cornelius Elementary School say wearing similar clothing is a good thing

By Nancy Townsley

The Forest Grove News-Times, Oct 3, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

Chase Allgood / News-Times

Principal Perla Rodriguez goes over uniform policy survey results with Cornelius Elementary School third-grader Vanessa Ramirez, a member of Robert Bonner’s class.

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Third-grader Vanessa Ramirez used to worry about what she’d wear to class. Now, because of her school’s new uniform policy, she doesn’t have to fret anymore.

Ramirez, 9, sat in Robert Bonner’s classroom at Cornelius Elementary School last Thursday in a white three-quarter-length blouse, a navy blue cardigan sweater and a pleated khaki skirt.

White tights and black shoes completed her ensemble. Ramirez looked great, but she was even more focused on the new policy’s practical side.

“I used to practically miss the bus in the morning,” the dark-haired girl admitted. “My sister told me, ‘buy the uniform so you won’t be late.’”

Since last spring, when parents at the school asked Principal Perla Rodriguez to institute the policy, opinions about ditching conventional clothing for uniforms have swirled around the 320-student school.

Positive feedback

But now, a month since teachers and students started wearing blue, khaki, white and black, the program’s apparently a hit, particularly with younger students.

Feedback has been “very positive,” said Rodriguez, who resonated with parents’ pleas for uniforms that could help students take a more serious attitude about school.

“I’ve had compliments from visitors in our school and even from community members who drive by and see our kids outside playing,” she added.

Hard data from inside the school supports it as well, said Bonner, whose 21 students completed an extensive survey last week about how the new policy is going over at Cornelius.

After asking pupils in 11 classrooms to weigh in on whether they liked the uniforms, enjoyed wearing the uniforms, approved of the uniforms’ colors or wanted to change aspects of the policy, Bonner’s students discovered that, on average, 63 percent of the school approved of the uniforms.

“Pretty much the whole school likes them,” said Mia Herdzina, 8, who’s new to Cornelius School this fall. “We made charts about it.”

As they paired up and went from class to class in the school building, one student read the survey instructions while the other passed out the papers.

“We asked kids to mark a smiley face, a mad face or a neutral face on their paper” in response to each question, said Alejandra Guzman, 8. “The third-graders didn’t want to change (the policy).”

“The first-graders liked the uniforms a lot,” noted Ricky Celis-Salinas, also 8.

“The fourth-graders didn’t,” offered Alex Campos, 9. “But they liked the shoes.”

Critical thinking

Bonner, who has taught at Cornelius for seven years, said he came up with the survey idea over the summer, thinking it was a way to engage his class in critical thinking about an issue they could relate to.

“I wanted the students to do some graphing, but it developed into quite a bit more,” he said. The project started with individual hypotheses – predictions about how the survey would come out – and ended with conclusions.

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