After nearly two decades, students at Toano Middle School will no longer have to put on their polo shirts and khakis for class every morning.
At a recent Williamsburg-James City County School Board meeting, board members voted to maintain the district’s current uniform policy which allows for students to have the decision to opt out of wearing uniforms.
As a result, Tracey Jones, Toano Middle School principal, sent an email to students and families saying that uniforms would no longer be a part of the TMS experience.
Related story: Toano students might be one step closer to not wearing uniforms
Previous to the 2017-2018 school year, students were allowed to opt out of the uniform policy by attending another school in the district. But as enrollment increased at other schools, this no longer was a viable option. So students were then allowed to opt out on an individual basis while remaining at TMS.
That caused the number of students choosing to opt out to jump from 29 percent in the first year of the new policy to 49 percent in the second year.
During the May 8 school board meeting, members and administrators discussed the difficulty of enforcing the school’s uniform dress code when nearly half the student body was opting out of the uniforms.
Eileen Cox, spokeswoman for the district, said after consulting with the district’s attorney, the recommendation was to keep the opt out option intact to prevent any complications with students’ first amendment rights.
That sparked the final tide of change at the middle school.
“As I have shared previously, the majority of Toano students, parents and staff do not support the use of school uniforms unless all students are required to participate,” Jones wrote in the email. “Therefore, beginning with the start of the 2019-20 school year, Toano Middle School will discontinue the use of school uniforms.”
Related story: After nearly 20 years, Toano Middle School may drop uniforms
Following the email, parents took to Facebook to express confusion as to what they should do with all of their children’s uniform clothes now that they are no longer needed.
Cox said the Toano Middle School Parent Teacher Association is planning to collect any gently used uniforms for donations. Some of the clothes will be donated to James River Elementary School, the only other school in the district with a uniform policy, and some will be donated to charity.
Despite the changes at TMS, James River will not see any difference to uniform practices in the coming school year because not enough students at the school have chosen to opt out of the uniforms, Cox said.
While the students at TMS will no longer have to wear uniforms, they will have to comply with a dress code Jones said was similar to those at other WJCC middle schools. Some of the regulations are as specific as not allowing cleavage or bare shoulders, but other regulations, such as “clothing and hair should be kept clean and neat,” give a more general idea of what students should and shouldn’t wear.
The official dress code for the school has not yet been finalized, Jones said, but it should be posted online and sent to families for the start of the next school year.
