Wearing Policy

Abstract

In this personal account, the author recounts navigating a school uniform policy as a new teacher in a large public high school in Baltimore. He loosely situates this telling in the recent history of the public school uniform movement, of which Baltimore was central. Writing in an urgent present tense, the author details the many complexities posed by a rigid policy regulating students’ bodies. Unfolding over the course of a single school year, this article charts a system newcomer’s evolving understanding of the uniform policy, a school, and his students. The article additionally raises broader considerations about policy enforcement in classrooms and probes the social and political implications of policies schools prioritize.