Florida lawmakers want to help kids across the state with an age-old quandary: what to wear to school.
A House panel on Thursday gave its approval to a plan that would encourage school districts to adopt a standard attire policy for students in grades K-8.
The bill includes a cash incentive — $10 per student —for school districts that comply.
That could mean as much as $1.4 million for the Broward district, and $2.25 million for Miami-Dade. The money would be earmarked for school safety initiatives.
“We think this would streamline morning activities for moms and dads, and help improve the climate at schools across the state,” House K-12 Education Committee Chairwoman Janet Adkins said Thursday.
Neither Miami-Dade nor Broward has a district-wide school uniform policy. Both districts let individual schools decide.
“It’s a decision that involves the teachers, students and parents,” Broward schools spokeswoman Nadine Drew said. “So it varies from school to school, and community to community.”
Broward doesn’t keep track of the number of schools with a standard attire policy, Drew said.
All but two of Miami-Dade’s 340 schools have some kind of school uniform program, school system administrator Sally Alayon told lawmakers earlier this year.
