School Time LLC helping outfit area’s youth

For years, schools have mandated that students wear school-regulated uniforms.

Luckily for the Tri-parish area, there is a uniform store that is easily accessible, School Time on West Main Street in Houma.

In 2000, owners Jeff Daquanno and Ken Knoss opened School Time because there was only one other school uniform store in the area.

“If residents didn’t get their uniforms from the other local store, they had to travel to the New Orleans area for school uniforms,” said Misty Verret, the store manager.

School Time offers boys pants, shirts and shorts. Girls can choose from shirts, jumpers, skirts, pants and shorts.

For the past eight years, the store has been serving Catholic and private schools in the Tri-parish area because local private institutions have specific uniforms the students have to wear. Only merchandise that is approved by the school systems is sold.

“Those schools have pretty much worn the same attire for generations, which makes it easier to dress the students,” she said. “We check with vendors and see what they have available and then we make a profile for the schools to approve. The school systems made the final decision about the attire that we provide for them.”

Verret said all School Time uniforms can also be embroidered with school logos.

On the other hand, many public schools in the Tri-parish area do not use School Time because their dress code is more relaxed.

“It has been in the past 10 years that public school-age children were mandated to wear a standard uniform of white shirts with slacks, shorts or skirts,” she said. “They come to us mostly to purchase the white knit tops.”

Regardless of whether the students are from public or private schools Verret said she just loves being a part of the process.

“I have customers that started getting their uniforms from School Time in prekindergarten and now they are middle school students,” she said. “I get a chance to see how they’ve grown over the years.”

Verret has been the manager at School Time since it opened. But, she started working at another uniform store in 1994 one year after wearing a uniform herself at Houma Christian School.

“I started wearing uniforms in the seventh grade, so I know what the students are going through,” she said. “When I was in school there was no local vendor. All students met at one school to order their uniforms from a company, and then the uniforms were shipped to your house before school started.”

One of her greatest moments is seeing a child try on a uniform for the very first time.

“Parents come in with video cameras because they are so excited, and it’s so amazing to see how the children’s eyes light up when they see themselves in the mirror,” Verret said. “Granted, that not many of the children are excited about going to school, but once you get them relaxed they love the experience.”

On the flip side, her toughest moment is not having the merchandise for the children at the start of school.

“Not that that has happened a lot, but it’s tough calling the school and telling them that we don’t have the item they requested,” she said.

Days before school started in Houma, School Time store manager Misty Verret helped Lizzy Mallard dress her three-year-old son Logan, who will be a preschooler at Covenant Christian Academy this year. * Photo by SOPHIA RUFFIN