Suffolk, Virginia is in the news.

Basically Suffolk wants to put into their dress code that students can only wear gender appropriate clothes.  This is silly for many reasons:

1. Does this mean that all the girls have to wear dresses?
2. Can the guys not wear skinny jeans?
3. What about the more tom-boy-ish set?  Are we going to force prom dresses on them?

But in all of this, I need to mention this is why I think that school uniforms are WONDERFUL!  Seriously!  If every student in the school wears khaki pants and a polo shirt, they can all be unhappy together.  And teacher can stop having to ask guys to pull their pants up, and girls to put some clothes on.

But in all seriousness, I'm all about the freedom of expression, but the dress that some of these kids call clothes is disruptive.  I worked in a middle school for a year and not a day went buy where I wasn't writing someone up for dress code violations.  The teacher begged for uniforms.  The parents said no.

Also, as a teacher, I understand that some trans people want to start experimenting with dressing as the other gender.  Dude, if you're that brave, go for it.  Unfortunately, the rest of the teachers have to deal with your jack-ass classmates that will disrupt class (and every other time) trying to bully and mock you for it.  That's the only reason that I'd lean in favor of a thing like uniforms.  It'll keep the mouthy teens in line.

It's a hard issue.  And I've seen both sides.

but as a former teacher, I can't say it enough.  Put those kids in uniforms.  Please!