KIDS TRY THE UNIFORM LOOK : PLACERITA JUNIOR HIGH STUDENTS START DRESSING IN MANDATED STYLE.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

At Placerita Junior High, students were looking blue as they returned to school after their carefree summer vacation. They also were looking hunter green, white, khaki, pale yellow and even plaid.

Thursday marked the debut of mandatory uniforms at the Newhall campus, the third in the William S. Hart Union High School District to adopt the policy.

``They were dressed and groomed and looking like ladies and gentlemen,'' said Robert Lee, Hart district superintendent, who visited Placerita for two hours on opening day to chat with parents, students, teachers and administrators.

Lee said he got plenty of feedback from the seventh- and eighth-graders about wearing uniforms.

``A couple of students were a little bit concerned at first, but by the time they got to school and realized that everyone else was wearing the uniforms. . . . When they realized it was a schoolwide effort, they felt very comfortable,'' Lee said.

``It wasn't like they were being compared for their name-brand labels. They were just being looked at as another student.''

Students have a broad choice of uniform pieces and colors that they can mix and match to take the monotony out of the dress code. The uniforms, made by Cherokee and sold at Class Mates, the company's Soledad Canyon Road outlet, include pants, shorts, pleated skirts, T-shirts, turtlenecks, sweat shirts, lightweight jackets, and three-button polo shirts in short-sleeve and long-sleeve styles, said Monique Newman, chairman of Placerita's uniform committee.

Most of the clothing is a 50-50 blend of polyester and cotton. ``They wash and wear well,'' Newman said.

T-shirts and sweat shirts bear the school logo of a gold miner. ``The actual Spanish word `placerita' has to do with a miner panning for gold,'' Newman explained.

La Mesa Junior High was the first school in the district to establish a uniform requirement.

Last fall, Sierra Vista Junior High introduced uniforms on an optional basis, later making compliance mandatory.

Placerita Principal Teri Atkinson said Friday that most of the school's 1,100 students have purchased the complete uniform, but about 70 only have part of the required outfit, such as shorts but not shirts.

Cherokee was filling the orders as quickly as possible, she said, but meanwhile students had to get a waiver from Atkinson if they came to school missing only partially in uniform, she said.

Many students found similar clothes while they wait for their ordered uniforms, Atkinson said. ``It's almost as though they don't want to stand out,'' she said.

Cherokee officials spent Thursday and Friday at Placerita dispensing uniforms. ``We have a roomful of clothes. The orders are here, but the people have not come to pick them up,'' the principal said.

Newman said it was easy to sell her eighth-grade son, Scott, on the dress code she helped draft.

``It's the style that he tends to wear anyway. Frankly, I don't have a problem with any of his wardrobe choices,'' Newman said. ``He could see the benefits of making it a safer campus.''

Newman said she bought Scott two pairs of pants, two pairs of shorts, three polo shirts, two T-shirts, one sweat shirt and one jacket. ``It only cost us around $180,'' she said.

Families of about half of the Placerita students took advantage of Cherokee's early-order discount. Newman saved 15 percent because she bought Scott's uniforms in May, and the clothes arrived last month.

Lee said that many public schools across the country have started requiring uniforms to eliminate gang clothing that has led to campus violence.

``It was really a pro-active move on the part of the community,'' the superintendent said about the decision to require uniforms at Placerita when there had been no gang-clothing trouble.

Although expressing their personalities through clothing and hairstyles can be all-important to adolescents, Newman predicted most Placerita students eventually will like wearing uniforms.

``The cool thing is to say they don't like them,'' she said. ``But it really simplifies dressing in the morning. The kids don't have to compete in status clothing.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--ran in SAC only--color) Placerita seventh-gra der Victoria Hunt, waiting for an ordered uniform, shows her waiver from Principal Teri Atkinson.

(2--ran in SAC only--color) Newhall junior high students in the William S. Hart Union High School District go to class in styles of clothing styles mandated by officials.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News