Over the course of the 2013 summer break, the North Arlington School Board voted to take up a measure designating a uniform for all public school students in the district to attend classes in. Since the final approval of the policy in July, uniforms, for most students, have become a polarizing issue with distinct camps of popular support and dissent.

 North Arlington, for as long as most recent alumni can remember, has been the odd one out among the neighboring school districts of Kearny and Lyndhurst, as well as the private Queen of Peace schools, which are affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. Not only is North Arlington fairly small when compared to both the campus and student body size of its neighbors, but it was, until now, the only district not to have some sort of a uniform policy.

Some at the aforementioned schools had sought to establish uniform policies on the basis of creating a more formal studying environment. In such an environment, uniforms would act as “the great equalizer”, eliminating bullying brought on by judgment of another student’s clothes, as well as generally improving classroom attitude by removing the apparent distraction of unique outfits. In making my case against this, firstly, I can swear firmly to never having once seen an act of aggression or bullying over such a superficial aspect as one’s fashion sense. Second, the morale of the vast majority of students has not improved, but instead deteriorated, owing mostly to the popular notion of having had a small, but important freedom unnecessarily stripped away.

With these arguments out of the way, what more motivating factors could the school board have had to impose uniforms upon the students? I hypothesize that, just as was the case with the exorbitant renovation of the Rip Collins athletic field, it was revenue.

Just as I compared North Arlington and its neighbors, so did the NAHS staff compare the two during the field referendum debate. Some very frank observations were communicated in the form of presentations given directly to students, and also in pamphlets sent via postage. It was made abundantly clear that schools in close proximity to our own were endowed with such wonderfully modern facilities, and that we were deserving of the same.

Aside from the practicality of having a more durable playing surface in the event of another tragic hurricane or flood, the chief selling point for the $3 million renovation of the field was to attract new residents. As was directly stated, the hope was that prospective parents would see the new, reconstructed field as a shining example of the school district’s quality, and eventually move to and send their children there to be educated.

Please understand that I am by no means questioning the motivation of the educators at work in this town’s schools when I say that the primary reason to attract such families to the district was revenue. Though North Arlington’s schools are free for the citizens of the town, the influx of tax dollars brought by residents drawn to the rebuilt Rip Collins would mean a surge of (indirect) funding to the Elementary, Middle, and High schools.

Rebuilding Rip Collins was an initiative born largely of desire to, as the saying goes, “keep up with the Joneses” (the “Joneses” being neighboring Lyndhurst and Kearny), and now so is the uniform policy. One should note that neither Lyndhurst nor Kearny has a school dress code quite as restrictive as North Arlington’s, with both schools permitting a wider degree of school-branded attire, outerwear, skirts for girls, and the like. Uniforms act as a type of worn advertisement for a school, and if enough quality students are seen about town sporting them, then they promote that school every bit as well as a refurbished field does.

It is my belief that the students of North Arlington are civil enough to not have need of any uniform; we can make due with multiform! Digressing, both as a student and as a man of principle, I am diametrically opposed to the school’s new policy. Not just because I find the choices of clothing to be inferiorly made and uncomfortable, but because I do not wish to pay more towards what was supposed to be an education at a public school, free of charge. Above that, however, is my final argument, and what ultimately compelled me to write this op-ed; that these uniforms do the annual budget more good than they do myself, my peers, or my town’s good name.