In the pursuit of uniformity a school is damaging the business of a long established Tauranga retailer by banning the sale of the store's own line of Tauranga Boys' College clothing.
Active Schoolwear Limited's line of clothes was banned by Tauranga Boys' College's board of trustees in January – a move supported by principal Robert Mangan.
Tauranga Boys' College is banning the sale of Active Schoolwear Limited's own line of the school's uniforms.
Active Schoolwear has manufactured its own dark navy polo shirts and grey shorts for about 30 years and in the last year sold them alongside authorised manufacturer ISC Lenco's line.
These items of clothing bear the school's trademarked insignia of Discobolus – a Greek discus thrower.
Robert says a single manufacturer is selected to ensure the right quality of garments is being worn.
He also says allowing imitation clothes leads to a mixture in appearance.
'If we have a variety of manufacturers then we won't be in one form,” says Robert.
He says the board's processes in selecting ISC Lenco as the authorised manufacturer are robust and supports their decision.
'They are working hard to get the best value for money and to get the best performance.”
In a school newsletter, Robert stated Active Schoolwear's version of the uniform has 'different shades of colour, and a number of other differences”.
Active Schoolwear managing director Tineke Bouchier says the quality of the imitation clothes is superior to the ISC Lenco products.
'We believe our quality to be better,” says Tineke.
Tineke says an example is the ISC Lenko sport polo, which has a 250gsm (weight of the fibre) as opposed to the 280 gsm of the Active Schoolwear sourced clothes.
Also, prior to the ISC Lenko contract, which Tineke says started about a year ago, shorts used by Tauranga Boys' College were a wool-blend 280gsm, but the ISC Lenko ones are polyester.
Tineke says the quality of the ISC Lenko product is down, yet it is being sold at wholesale for the same price as it was with the earlier, better quality product.
She says it came as a surprise when the injunction was sought against Active Schoolwear as she believed the business had the right to manufacture the clothing with the Discobolus on it.
She has been doing it for about 30 years and has permission from Tauranga Girls' College to manufacture clothing with the Discobolus on it.
'We didn't realise we had broken the law.
'We believe that after talking with solicitors if we have permission to use it, we have permission to use it.”
However, the court has found otherwise and an injunction on the sale of the Active Schoolwear manufactured items was served on January 27.
Tineke says the store is complying with the injunction, but disagrees with it and feels it is parents who are losing out as there is less competition.
'We are a local business getting thin on the ground and we really want to do the best we can and support the parents.”
She does not want to grossly undercut the market, but believes offering a competitive price on a quality garment is a part of the uniform market.
'It's a bit like Air New Zealand, when you have no competition the price inevitably goes up.”
Tineke says a large number of parents have contacted her in the last few weeks to lend their support as they believe the school is being unreasonable.
Uniform sales are a source of fundraising for schools when the clothing is purchased directly from the school.
Tineke accepts some parents will want to pay the school price for uniform in an effort to support the school financially, but others do not.
In the case of physical education uniform, she says many parents are annoyed that the items of clothing can only be purchased directly from the school and comment to her:
‘It's so inconvenient for us to queue at the school shop, why don't you sell it?'
Robert Mangan says there is an interim period when students will be allowed to continue to wear the imitation clothing until their parents can replace it.
11 comments
Schools should be concentrating on EDUCATION
Posted on 24-02-2012 13:02 | By Colleen Spiro
Schools should concentrate on the the business of EDUCATING, not being a business....As long as I can remember I used to buy my daughters schoolwear from a shop up Devonport Road, the name escapes me, but it was legal and cheaper than buying through the schools. They also sold material and patterns for those of whom wished to make their own. My daughter is now 31. Now watch another business go to the wall.
More questions than answers.
Posted on 24-02-2012 13:10 | By Murray.Guy
Robert says "a single manufacturer is selected to ensure the right quality of garments is being worn." I'm struggling on that point. How are the students disadvantage from an education perspective? Does the school 'clip the ticket'? What is so wrong with anybody producing and selling a uniform, within agreed colour, quality and design parameters?
School bans imitation uniforms
Posted on 24-02-2012 13:13 | By gmundy
Principal Robert Mangan has a strange concept of education if he thinks it has any relationship to uniformity. This sounds more like totalitarianism. Could he tell us if the school gets some consideration, financial or otherwise, from the favoured supplier?
Posted on 24-02-2012 13:58 | By Kaimai
If this is the way TBC treats local business's - how do they treat the students - run off to the solicitors? Which brings up the question - who paid the solicitors, who paid the court fees - might be a case for the Minister to get involved if school funds have been used to protect a "School" Trademark, instead of educating students!
Why Uniforms
Posted on 24-02-2012 14:42 | By Adrian Muller
The only reason schools make students wear school uniforms is to MAKE them wear school uniforms. The role of a school in educating teens is to socialise them into conforming to society's standards, and one of the essiest wsys to do this is to have myriad school rules thst must be complied with simply and only because they are school rules. That's how young teens learn to obey their elders, (ie BOT and Principale) and if the teens question it all, or disrupts the laying down of these laws, then the wrath of the school focuses on those teens. This leads on to (presumably) conformist citizens who obey rules because they are rules, and laws because they are laws. In society, most of the laws are reasonable and sensible, (not all), so the school fulfils a valuable function in this regard. However, it is also a hard-wired drive innate in teens to test the rules, try to break them. So every year there will be behaviour or habits of wearing uniforms that upset the staff, as teens try to break the rules of conformity. So this uniform saga is just the latest in a long long line of episodes where the young test the old. Sadly a business using common sense and cost cutting philosophies now finds itself up against the juggernaut of the BOT.
Stick to the rules
Posted on 24-02-2012 15:17 | By The Sage
From what I can gather Active Schoolwear had a contract with the Boys College to sell uniforms through an approved supplier. They have obviously gone outside that contract and got their own, probably cheaper, supplier. If I was a parent who had bought a uniform in good faith at Active Schoolwear I would be really angry. It's the old guideline, when you are in business, do it by the book, otherwise wear the consequences.Did the parents get the uniforms for a cheaper price, than at the retailers who were actually selling the correct uniform? If Active Schoolwear weren't passing on the price savings to the parents, I have no sympathey for them. Good on Bob Mangan for sticking to his guns.
Posted on 24-02-2012 16:30 | By charob
that is so stupid/ Look around the school, . the thing that needs to be addressed is the way the students wear the uniform. scruffy young b.......rs.. also the shoes. I thought there had to be a standard set here. .
Absolutely stupid
Posted on 24-02-2012 18:12 | By dave83
Yeah there was a certain group in Germany in the 1930's that wanted everybody "to conform". I think this lot belong to the same group.
Typical
Posted on 24-02-2012 20:01 | By lpm67
This is getting ridiculous....parents been forced to spend more than necessary...not right. Still that isnt the worse thing going on with Tauranga schools. Try schools forcing children to take classes that were once considered optional at the expense of the basics...english, maths and science.
Always right
Posted on 24-02-2012 23:56 | By CC8
STUPID "educators" always think they are "right". Absolute idiots who have no clue in the real world , churning out more robots to spend the rest of their days as "complying sheep".
Missing the point
Posted on 25-02-2012 09:39 | By The Sage
These blogs going on about education are missing the point. This subject has nothing to do with education, it is about a retailer, who has an agreement with the schools to sell approved uniforms, breaking their contract. Ms Bouchier states that her uniforms are superior quality to the usual school approved ones. You can bet your bottom dollar that they did not cost her as much to produce, so it is all about increasing her margins, which I am sure weren't passed on to the purchaser. Parents bought these uniforms in good faith that they were buying the correct product. This is deceptive. The topic is not as cut and dried as people seem to think. Nor is it in the bag for Miss Bouchier who will be getting the backlash and her business is bound to suffer. Not through the fault of any school, but by her own misdeads.
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