Have you ever felt out of place in a crowd or ever felt like someone looked better than you because he/she had the latest fads?

Perhaps the issue was only present because you were not in a uniform. Uniforms in schools make students feel a sense of belonging, add a measure of safety, and reduce pressure. Many public-school districts across the country have implemented this policy, and private and parochial schools have used uniforms for generations.

Uniforms create a feeling of unity and belonging where everyone is on the same team. As on athletic teams, students wear uniforms in schools for immediate identification and to inspire a feeling of oneness. Put on your team uniform and you suddenly belong; a sense of loyalty emerges from inside, as does an extra effort to perform at your best. The same applies to school uniforms.

French Toast Official School Wear, a school-uniform supplier, states in its article “Why School Uniforms?” that “uniforms…raise students’ expectations of themselves. When dressed neatly and seriously, students tend to behave seriously….Students seem to feel more confident in the way they look, and so they have more confidence in themselves….” The point is, uniforms make people feel like part of a team – even if that team is not a sport.

Look around PB and you see the members of NJROTC walking around the school every Thursday in their uniforms, and it is clear they carry themselves in a different way, because on that day uniforms allow them to feel together, a part of something; they represent a group of people, so they want to look their best.

Student and gang violence are a prominent issue when students don’t wear uniforms. All too often, tragic headlines of teenagers being hurt or even killed over a piece of clothing run across our screens. Whether these headlines be about a boy being killed for basketball shoes or someone getting caught in the crossfire as another student is robbed for her designer jacket, it could be solved with one word: uniforms. According to Great Schools.com, uniform costs average about $150 per year for 5 shirts and 5 pairs of pants. In stark contrast is the cost for non-uniform-wearing students, which is over $500 a year. However, uniforms not only save on cost, they also save on time. When you wear a uniform, you already know what you’re going to wear the next day. You don’t have to think about what you are going to wear on a daily basis, so issues such as when you last wore an outfit no longer exist.

Montgomery County Public Schools should join the many school districts across the nation that have implemented a school-uniform policy. I attended school in a district with uniforms from the time I was in 1st grade, and it was a tremendous step back when I transferred to MCPS. In my experience, no one really complained about having to wear the same clothing every day; in fact, they seemed to enjoy the simplicity of wearing the same clothes each day.