Middle schools to require uniforms for 2013-14

Board votes in favor of uniforms for middle school students starting next year

By Kyle Carrozza, Staff Writer, The Times

The school board approved $2.3 million of renovation to South Brandywine Tuesday. The maintenance will update the school as North is being replaced.

CALN – Uniforms will be incorporated into the Coatesville Area School District’s middle schools next year, as voted on by the school board at their meeting on Tuesday night.

Already worn in the elementary schools, the uniforms will consist of khaki pants or a skirt and a red, black, or white polo.

“They’ve been a great success in elementary schools,” said Board President J. Neil Campbell. “It makes sense to take them to the next level.”

Not everyone shared Campbell’s view on the decision, though. Michelle Wright, a parent of two students in the district, said that she thinks that uniforms should stay in elementary schools.

“I think that uniforms going into middle schools would be a disservice,” she said, saying that uniforms get expensive, and it will be unfair to make teachers enforce rules.

In other action regarding middle schools, the board approved contractor bids to renovate South Brandywine Middle School. The bids are the latest step in plans to replace North and South Brandywine middle schools. While the district cannot afford to replace both as originally hoped, the renovations to South will update the school while North is being replaced.

Totaling $2.3 million, the renovations include plumbing, electric, and heating. The contracts ended up less costly than a number of board members said they thought they would be.

“These bids and the aggregate total all come in under budget,” said board member Joseph Dunn.

Sticking with the middle schools as a main topic at board meeting, students from Scott Middle School showed off their efforts to stop bullying. The school held a poster contest, and the three winners, Maya Butcher, Lindsay Brown, and Madison Short, presented their posters to the audience.

Students Richie Jason and Alexa Otera, who organized the contest, spoke to the board about bullying.

“Bullying is not what it used to be,” said Jason, who cited statistics and examples, such as cyber-bullying, to show how bullying has changed.

“My experience with bullying just made me push harder with STAND [the school’s anti-bullying program],” said Otera, who said that she hopes to take her message to the elementary schools so that the students will hear it from a young age.

Superintendent Richard W. Como ended the meeting with a strong message championing Coatesville Area School District. Como said that someone recently asked him why parents would put their children in the district with other options available. Perturbed by the question, Como, along with other members of the administration drafted a letter to the public dissecting how Coatesville schools provide a top-of-line education.

“Our schools focus on the whole child, academically and socially,” said Como, using both test scores and extracurricular activities to demonstrate his point.

He said that Coatesville offers a quality education for all types of students, backing that statement up with graduation rates that are higher than other districts and national recognition garnered by gifted students.

“Teachers in our district are highly qualified, and we’ve seen tremendous growth with all types of learners,” he said.

Como brought the point home by stressing Coatesville’s diversity, how the district is able to achieve similarly or better than other school districts while also providing a learning environment of people from many different backgrounds.

“There is no place that can do any better than we can, but we do it in a multicultural environment, which is a microcosm for the real world,” said Como. “The proof is in the pudding, and in Coatesville, it’s not a one-egg pudding.”