Dorothy Rowley, The Examiner
2007-10-01 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon and city school officials will roll out a plan requiring school uniforms for the city’s 82,000 public school students starting next fall, according to a radio talk show host.

The plan will be announced in about two weeks, said talk show host Tom Moore, who has presented the idea to Dixon’s office.

Mayoral spokesman Anthony McCarthy confirmed Moore had been in touch with Dixon but would not provide specific details.

“The mayor thinks it’s a very intriguing idea,” McCarthy said when queried on whether Dixon supported school uniforms. Asked about a pending news conference slated for the coming weeks, he said, “We’re not going to say anything about uniforms until we’re ready.”

Saying he was fed up with classroom distractions that impede test scores and foster disciplinarian problems, Moore said the plan poises BCPSS to be the first of the state’s 24 school districts to fall in line with the new mandate.

It will also give Baltimore the lead nationally and get other states’ districts to adopt similar requirements, said Moore, whose show airs Saturday nights on AM 680 WCMB.

“Baltimore City would be the first district in the country to make the requirement for all students,” Moore said.

“I conceived the idea and had been lobbying the mayor a long time. Research shows it reduces gang activity and will save parents hundreds of dollars on mall fashions that they don’t need.”

Moore, who said Dixon looked at the possibility while she was City Council president, said he has spoken with the state attorney general to ensure that a uniform requirement would be constitutional.

Schools CEO Dr. Andres Alonso said the school uniform policy would have to be approved by the school board.

“I would have to confer with them to see how they feel about it,” he added.

He said, however, that most school districts don’t know whether uniforms have any practical impact.

“My history and knowledge of what happens [with such requirements] is based on the concerns and needs of schools,” Alonso said. “I recognize that it is a board prerogative and have seen students in uniforms in most of the schools I’ve visited in Baltimore. Wearing them have symbolic value of students being students — and being part of the community.”

drowley@baltimoreexaminer.com