I wrote a Viewpoint for Wednesday Journal after the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. “Nothing to lose with uniforms,” was the headline. There have been 400 school shootings since then.
OPRF today has 42 security staff, up from about 5. There are many parts to a possible solution. In every case they will save money.
Almost everyone in education believes that by the third grade you know which children will have difficulty going forward. In fourth grade there can be extra effort with those children, but by fifth they just promote them to junior high. You can’t hold a child back. Why?
Junior high is only three years and they are shipped to high school. Because of privacy laws, for many years districts 90 and 97 did not communicate with the high school about the students they were receiving. We could solve this problem by making the superintendent of the high school the superintendent of K through 12 as happens in 47 of our 50 states. The whole system would be working together on solving this problem during their earlier school years.
In 1995 John Callaway did a program about Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire that was rated three times as the top high school in Illinois. He interviewed students about their problems. They spoke about cliques, jocks, nerds, etc. Many thought they were not accepted at Stevenson and didn’t feel comfortable joining many of the programs that the school offered because they didn’t want to be noticed or be subject to more abuse. One thing came out clearly in what a lot of students had to say. How they dressed had a lot to do about how they were treated!
England and Ireland require students to wear uniforms. They haven’t had any school shootings. The cellphone problem is more easily fixed if there is a united front at the school and board level. Uniforms could solve most of the fighting problems. Instead of spending countless hours on student problems, you could spend valuable time on how to put OPRF back on top. Uniforms could be as simple as khaki pants, skirts or shorts and a collared shirt or polo shirt for warm days.
When my girls were at OPRF the problem many school mornings was trying to decide what to wear and still catching the bus. Isn’t it time for common sense in education?
Jack Flynn
River Forest