A uniformly unpleasant experience....

As most of you know we moved from the burbs into Toledo which means my youngest will be attending TPS. The initial experience in enrolling her went fine, and by luck her teacher happened to be there that day getting the classroom ready so they had the chance to meet.

I'm not a pro-uniform person, I fully admit that and I knew the uniform policy at TPS was going to be a major downside to me but I forged ahead hoping for the best. I also hate shopping. The first bit of misinformation was about the uniform voucher policy. I was told where I needed to go and what I needed to take but I was told the voucher was given that day. It's mailed and by the time it will be received school will already be in session. Several other parents who I've spoken with have stated this is not uncommon.

So we set out to buy the required clothing items for Toledo Public Elementary Schools. If your child is a 6X you are in luck, however my soon to be 12 year old is not a size 6X. Three Wal-Marts, Target, Meijer, Sam's Club and Kohl's were visited. The Wal-marts did not even have tops in her size. Meijer had nothing. Sam's Club did have the polo shirts in White, 2 in her size, which I purchased for $7.60 each. Target had nothing. I'd point out that we not only checked the girl's department but the junior's department looking for skirts in the required material in Khaki at each store. At Kohl's we found one skirt that looked "uniformish" and was in her size. One...Thankfully it was on sale, normally priced at $34.99 it was $14.99. So for a little over $30.00 we have two days worth of school clothing wear. An amazing fact that TPS doesn't seem to realize is not everyone has a washer and a dryer.

Realistically we are going to have to purchase more clothing items before the voucher arrives. That's if we can even use the voucher since I was told at least at the time we were shopping the size I needed was not available where the voucher can be used either.

So, a very uniformly unpleasant experience that has not saved me time, nor money and has been more stressful than what I normally go thru in trying to buy school clothing each year. Worse yet is I know this has to be repeated and soon. I couldn't help wondering if there was an opt out procedure, which I'm looking into.

I'd also point out I'm not alone on feeling that this is not such a uniformly great idea Random Thoughts on TPS weighed in earlier this month on this topic and over on Toledo Talk it's being stated it's not even being "uniformly" enforced.

:-)

UPDATE Tuesday: Well from the looks of the student population - the dress code is not even close to being enforced. Not even the whole "must have black or brown dress shoes". Nor the colors of the shirts so looks at least at the beginning it's pretty lax.