2205 Forest Drive SE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52403 SurveyorWHS@gmail.com crwashsurveyor.com Volume 55, Number 8 Monday, April 23, 2012
District decides on uniforms for next year
Alyssa Christian Editor-In-Chief
A firestorm of parent and teacher complaints about student wardrobe over the last few years has culminated in one of the most controversial school district decisions in recent history: Cedar Rapids schools will be mandating school uniforms at the beginning of the 2012-13 school year. “Complaints had been surfacing more and more over the last couple of years to the point where we had to answer with something… teachers were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with student attire… ‘saggy pants,’ ‘cropped tops,’ ‘short shorts’ and ‘excessively low cut tops’ were among the most frequent of complaints,” according to a release from the school district. Although the discussion of school uniforms has been around for years, excessive teacher and parent complaints, in combination with gang-related scares throughout the country including in cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles, have brought the new policy to fruition. The decision was finalized earlier this month at a district administration meeting on Wednesday, April 11. “Although I know it will be a big change- I’m excited to see how it will affect the learning environment here at Wash… We’ll be able to concentrate our focus entirely on academics… not dealing with distractions of how people are dressing and what
so-and-so’s wearing today,” said Principal Dr. Ralph Plagman. The new uniforms will require khaki or navy blue pants with a grey, white, or navy blue polo or a red polo on game day; all of which will become available for order from the district or at the Wash student store. The district believes that this will cut down on school day interruptions involving student outfits and will create a more
environment that was “discouraging of educational pride, enthusiasm and intellectual innovation.” (Dewitt College of Education, 2008) When standardized
“We understand that this will not be a popular decision with most students, but hopefully, in time, we all will see the benefits of school uniforms and then the reasoning behind this decision will become clear.”
School District Representative
professional atmosphere at school. “I’ve always believed, just as being a principal is my job, coming to school and being an active learner is [the students’] job. Now they’ll be dressing the part, too,” said Plagman. Studies suggest that students perform better when dressed in uniform. Similar studies concluded that sweat pants and other excessively casual attire created a “lethargic” and “apathetic” academic
test scores were experimentally compared among students who wore school uniforms and those who didn’t wear uniforms, those in uniform scored, on average 32% higher. (Dewitt) However the student response is not overwhelmingly in favor of the new policy and touches on the limitations on freedom of expression that it inherently involves. “I was infuriated,” said Haley Voss, ’14, of her initial reaction to the news. “I couldn’t
believe that at a public school I would be forced to wear a school uniform. It’s infringing on my freedom of expression and it’s not cool. I understand a dress code, you know, but an actual school uniform is not right. I dress appropriately for school and I shouldn’t be punished for those who don’t.” “We understand that this will not be a popular decision with most students, but hopefully, in time, we all will see the benefits of school uniforms and then the reasoning behind this decision will become clear. We hope to relegate students’ ‘creativity’ to the art rooms and their ‘expressiveness’ to their academic writing, and keep ‘style’ and ‘fashion’ elsewhere, where it belongs,” said a representative of the district. Well luckily for Washington Warriors, this is all a joke and a complete fabrication. So happy April Fools, everyone!
Inside this Issue n e w s
o p i n i o n s
p r o f i l e s
f o c u s
a & e
s p o r t s
Pages 2-4
Pages 5-6
Page 7 &10
Pages 8-9
Pages 11-13 Pages 12-15