Things seem to have heated up at Eastern Middle School over school uniforms (SMOD) since my previous post on the subject
By law, the final decision on school policy changes such as school uniforms are "site based" and deliberated by the School Leadership Team (operations manual, PDF File). Also, by law (GS 115c-105) this team is supposed to be comprised of a small group of elected parents (elected by the school's parents) and appointed teachers and administrators. The team is required to reflect the diversity of the school. Also, the team is supposed to be independent of the school's PTA. From my information, Eastern Middle may have fudged a bit on setting up their Leadership Team and folks are noticing. If the Leadership Team was not properly assembled, any decision they make could be invalidated according to the state's law governing site based management. To this, I received the following from a Eastern Middle parent...
"I sat in on the School leadership team meeting yesterday. There were no parents on the team except for the PTA president. He has not been elected to be on this team. After discussing the dress code they asked us to leave. I refused based on the open meeting law and explained that they cannot have a closed session meeting to discuss this behind closed doors. They are set on going forward with this...
...How can they dictate a policy with an unlawful board without minutes of any of the previous meetings or parents?"
Again I ask: Aycock Middle School has now been requiring SMOD for nearly a full school year. Have the Oxford shirts and khakis made a difference in that school' "learning environment". Our school board needs to find out. Why they won't wade into what could be a simple solution to the discipline ailments of our middle schools is beyond me. School uniforms either work as an agent of positive change or they don't.
If school uniforms are shown to have contributed to better discipline and resulted in a higher level of learning at Aycock then it should be required at all Guilford County middle schools. If such results can't be proven, the policy should be scrapped county wide to avoid the rancor that adopting the policy school-by-school obviously causes.
Eastern Middle's administration seems to be dead set on adopting uniforms at that school for next year and, like Aycock's administration last year, seems willing to trample on and snuff out any and all opposition to get this controversial policy in place.
Our School Board needs to put a stop to the divisiveness that site-based school uniform decisions are causing.
9:29:53 AM 
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