Fifth-graders debate school dress codes

The fifth grade class at Forest Road Elementary School in Valley Stream recently debated whether or not school uniforms should be enforced in schools and how attire can impact students.

Each week, fifth-grade teacher Taya Bartell posed a writing assignment where the students had to come up with five reasons for or against a particular topic. The students seemed very interested in the topic of uniforms in the classroom. Bartell found that it was a hot topic that polarized the class.

The students then researched and made compelling arguments for or against uniforms. “Each student presented a PowerPoint on Google slides, and we found that whatever their opinion was, there were many more than five reasons for either side that came out,” Bartell said.

A social experiment was also conducted among the class to see if dressing formally would improve test scores. “We picked a certain day where students had the option to dress up or dress casual and we found that these students who don’t have any sort of dress code were very excited.”

The study found that students who dressed formally received an 82 percent on the math unit test as opposed to 77 percent for the students who dressed casually.